See also the franchise-wide pages for:
- And The Fandom Rejoiced
- Complete Monster
- Hilarious In Hindsight
- Memes
- Nausea Fuel
- The Scrappy
- The Woobie
- Alternate Character Interpretation: Shang Tsung not wanting Shinnok to be free. Is he actually loyal to Shao Kahn in this depiction or is Pragmatic Villainy on his part given that is Shinnok we are talking about?
- Anti-Climax Boss: After appearing unstoppable for most of the movie, Goro dies easily to Scorpion's spear.
- Complete Monster: Quan Chi is a powerful sorcerer and the highest-ranking servant of the Mad God Shinnok. Taking over the Netherrealm after Shinnok was imprisoned by the Elder Gods, Quan Chi keeps the realm as a hellish nightmare, where countless people get tortured for eternity. Hatching a plan to free Shinnok, Quan Chi impersonated Sub-Zero and led the Lin Kuei to slaughter the whole clan of Shirai Ryu, personally killing the wife and child of Hanzo Hasashi, aka Scorpion. Promising to resurrect Hanzo's family in exchange for the key to release Shinnok, Quan Chi sent him undercover to the Mortal Kombat tournament to act as his champion, and when Scorpion failed him by choosing to kill Sub-Zero instead, Quan Chi taunted him by revealing that he was the one who destroyed his family and clan.
- Just Here for Godzilla: A lot of fans came to hear Patrick Seitz as Scorpion again, after getting replaced in Mortal Kombat 11.
- Memetic Mutation:
- During Scorpion and Quan Chi's fight in the climax, when the latter taunts him by saying "Put up more of a fight than your wife did", this has led to many comments saying something along the lines of "Well, he dug his own grave."
- Sonya kicking Johnny in his balls has led to many jokes about Cassie dying or having some kind of mental injury.
- Moral Event Horizon:
- Quan Chi disguising himself as Sub-Zero and murdering Scorpion's son right in front of him would certainly qualify, but leaving his body out to be eaten by the birds? That is just sadistic.
- Shang Tsung setting up Jax to get beaten to death by Goro. Just removing a fighter Earthrealm could use was one thing, but even after Goro had clearly won, Shang Tsung orders him to kill Jax who had by this point lost both his arms.
- Narm: Quan Chi poisoning Shang Tsung's drink...right next to him...in a crowded room. It's not a great look for Quan Chi at all, and that's telling considering his track record of Bond Villain Stupidity. The doofy grin he has while he's poisoning the drink makes it absolutely hilarious.
- Narm Charm: A lot of the script sounds like it was pulled from the notebook of a teenager trying to be edgy. But given this is Mortal Kombat, some would argue that's why it works.
- Nightmare Fuel:
- Goro's beating of Jax. It quickly becomes clear that Jax doesn't have a chance of winning, but Goro continued to mercilessly beat him anyways, and even after ripping his arms off he wasn't done.
- The murder of Hanzo's family and clan.
- Scorpion in the Netherrealm. He is held by a scythe being driven through each of his limbs.
- Shao Kahn's appearance in The Stinger. Shang Tsung is bleeding from the mouth begging for his master's forgiveness. Shao Kahn silences him, gets up off his throne with a shot of him with Glowing Eyes of Doom as he orders Shang Tsung to gather their army, saying it is time to end things with Earthrealm. We don't see what Shao Kahn did to Shang Tsung but what we gather is that it was brutal, and this was after Shang Tsung had pulled an Eviler than Thou on Quan Chi.
- Older Than They Think: While the fact Steve Blum was voicing the Bi-Han Sub-Zero in the film threw some people off, given he mostly voiced Kuai Liang, some of the mirror matches for Sub-Zero in Injustice 2 and Mortal Kombat 11 do see one of the Sub-Zeros be Bi-Han, so he still technically voiced this Sub-Zero before.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- In the last battle against Goro Liu Kang loses and needs to be saved by Scorpion. This has been criticised by Liu Kang's fans and critics of the favoritism Scorpion is given.
- Sub-Zero and Scorpion's infamous first battle turns out to never have even involved Sub-Zero. Quan Chi, disguised as Sub-Zero, unceremoniously kills Hanzo Hasashi.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Some fans thought Goro was sparsely used, especially considering that Kevin Michael Richardson has reprised the role for the first time since the first Mortal Kombat movie. He has less than five lines throughout the film.
- Sub-Zero is a worse case. He has significantly less screen time than he should have before he is unceremoniously killed by Scorpion.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Despite being called Scorpion's Revenge, the movie can't seem to decide who the actual hero is supposed to be until the very last minute, with lots of time spent developing Liu Kang, Sonya and Johnny Cage instead of Scorpion. Other plotlines that could have been interesting to see developed further, such as Sonya's chasing after Kano, are either too hastily resolved, or are straight up Big-Lipped Alligator Moments, like Kang and Kitana's sole interaction in the film.
- Unexpected Character: Nitara's wordless cameo was a welcome surprise for some fans who didn't expect to see any PS2 era characters in an adaptation like this.
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: Not that the Lin Kuei probably wouldn't have ended the Shirai Ryu themselves, but Quan Chi disguised as Sub-Zero tricked them into doing so at a disastrous time, causing many of them to die pointless deaths for his own ends. That said in most stories killing the Shirai Ryu's innocent families is usually seen as "crossing a line" and always the result of deception.
- WTH, Costuming Department?: A number of fans think Kitana's outfit is rather strange.
