Mortal Kombat

As video-game-inspired movies go, this remains leagues ahead of last year's Street Fighter. Of course, there's only so much one can do with a game that never leaves the fighting arena, but British director Anderson does a fair job with what he was given: four good-looking leads, some very impressive sfx, Babylonian sets, a bone-crunching soundtrack, and a battery of well-choreographed fights. That the plot occasionally reaches areas so ambiguous as to be unfathomable is beside the point; this is about hand-to-hand combat, pure and simple. Lambert plays Rayden, a highly-charged friendly God from the mystical Outworld. Not so friendly is sorcerer Shang Tsung (Tagawa), host of Outworld's infamous tournament where groups of humans go into battle against unearthly combatants and generally wind up getting thrashed. With Earth as the main prize, it's finally left to the skills of Rayden's three new hopefuls - Liu Kang (Shou), Johnny Cage (Ashby), and Sonya Blade (Wilson) - to wrest the fate of the planet from Outworld's grasp.