I feel like they could have MCU'd the shit out of this!
Should have been like 3 movies before the tournament.
Movie 1: Sub-Zero vs Hanzo (eventually Scorpion)-diving into their backstory and the ninja klans
Movie 2: Liu Kung/Kung Lao and Raiden in some sort of Shaolin adventure against Outworld
Movie 3: Special forces flick starring Sony and Jax hunting down Kano and the Black Dragon.
Then after that, do a Mortal Kombat movie all about the tournament. That works since you don't need to spend most of the movie doing exposition(poorly) like they did last time.