Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 19, 1995                   TAG: 9508220007
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO KORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`KOMBAT'S' KREATORS KNOW THEIR AUDIENCE

It's even more plotless and shallow than last year's "Street Fighter.'' After a kursory introduction, the martial-arts action is virtually nonstop, and most of the fight scenes are staged on atmospheric sets - kourtesy of Jonathan Carlson - to the accompaniment of a basketful of special visual effects and an ultra-loud score that assaults the ears. The predominantly male, teen-age audience at one Friday matinee was kompletely entranced and entertained.

It seems that a wizard (Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa) wants to take over the world. (For audience members with short attention spans, the fact that the fate of the world is at stake is repeated about every 15 minutes.) This wizard has arranged a tournament to settle things. His good-guy kounterpart (Christopher Lambert) has chosen three forgettable young heroes (Linden Ashby, Robin Shou, Bridgette Wilson) with excellent haircuts to defend the planet.

The villains are represented by a kouple of guys in horseshoe crab masks, a one-eyed Aussie and a four-armed kritter who looks like he was drawn by s-f illustrator Richard Corben but was actually kreated by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. These people and kreatures engage in a series of fights that, minus the bells and whistles, are standard stuff for martial-arts movies and videos.

Between bouts, Lambert delivers fortune-cookie platitudes, along the lines of "you must face your fear" and "you will accept your destiny." Like the fate-of-the-world business, all of the important ones are repeated at least once.

Since so many of the martial arts scenes are staged with deliberately obscure lighting, it's hard to tell how well director Paul Anderson handles the action. But, so what? "Mortal Kombat" delivers what its target audience wants to see. It's too noisy, brutal and flashy to bring any konverts into the theaters, or to the video arcade. That's not the point, either.

Mortal Kombat **

A New Line Cinema release playing at the Salem Valley 8 and Valley View 6. 92 min. Contains as much bone-krunching violence as a PG-13 rating will allow.