'Mortal Kombat II' Is a Moderate Finisher
Video game movies are historically terrible. Look no further than Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which even the series' creators, Ed Boon andohn Tobias, disowned. If the guys who made a game with hardly any story and all about extreme violence are dissatisfied with something the filmmakers have made, then obviously, the most incompetent job imaginable was performed. Mortal Kombat II (2026) does what the fans wanted in the first place. Make an MK film that follows the game's plot while also providing buckets of blood. It’s a bare-minimum expectation that shouldn’t be too hard to meet, yet it took decades for someone to finally get it right.
Mortal Kombat II is not a good film, nor does it have to be. It simply needs to be competently entertaining. All you need to do is follow the characters of the game and build a story around them. What the initial reboot did so wrong that this film gets right is not introduce new characters that nobody cares about. MK1 (2021) introduced Cole Young (Lewis Tan), a bland new character who served more as an avatar to introduce the audience to the Mortal Kombat universe. Why any of the fighters from the long-established games weren’t the protagonist was a head-scratching decision that tanked the picture after its fantastic first few minutes. Mortal Kombat II still has Cole in it, but he’s relegated to a background character, putting the neglected baby in the corner.
This film follows a protagonist from the game, but it’s not clear which main fighter is the hero. Is it Johnny Cage (Karl Urban), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), or Kitana? (Adeline Rudolph) The first movie’s problem remains prevalent in this film, but it at least follows fighters who are more interesting and established than the generic Cole Young. The story starts like the first film, with a flashback that sets up the endgame. At first, we think Kitana will be the protagonist. But then we cut to Johnny Cage. Cage is a has-been actor who was popular in the early 2000s (maybe even the 90s) and attends Cons. While he sits in his empty booth, videos from his old action flicks play on a loop behind him. Later, Cage is picked up in the parking lot to join the Mortal Kombat Tournament.
Johnny Cage’s progression from selfish to hero isn’t quite smooth. One minute, he doesn’t want to risk his life; the next, he decides to join so he can be relevant again. The washup-turned-savior angle is a neat place to put Cage, even if a million movies have done it before. It gives us a reason to care for Johnny Cage. Meanwhile, Kitana’s motivation is stimulated by revenge. Both characters are fun to follow, even though the movie is structurally a bit sloppy.
When the movie starts, it's already in the thick of the competition to save Earth from the Neatherealm. It’s not even clear whether the competition has begun, since there are no crowds at these events except for the very end. Where’s Shau Kahn sitting at his throne while watching the opponents go at it with each other? Luckily, Act 2 moves a little more smoothly than Act 1. Certainly, this movie is structurally far superior to the original reboot. It also helps that the movie knows how to handle its characters. MKII is a keys-jingling movie like The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, but it's more competent than Mario’s mega-dollar hit.
Mortal Kombat II is a movie made for fans that likely won’t win over non-fans. It’s not entirely the movie’s fault, as Mortal Kombat isn’t exactly Citizen Kane. It’s Citizen Cage. This is entertainment value at the dumbest level next to Jackass, and that’s perfectly okay given the limited source material. Yes, there are elements of mythology in the MK games, but they’re just background for the mindless bloodshed. For a piece of entertainment, the movie is filled with enough satisfying gory deaths to make sickos like MK gamers like yours truly happy.
The tone in MKII is fun as it should be. The number of jabs made at Quan Chi’s (Damon Herriman) expense is well earned. Let’s face it. Quan Chi was never really a thing, no matter how much the MK creators tried to shove him into the limelight. So why not mock him for the Powder-looking sorcerer he is? If you’re a Baraka fan, you might be satisfied that he actually is somewhat articulate and doesn’t sound like a bimbo with a frog caught in his throat. If there’s one miscast in the film, it’s Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), who sounds like he’s oddly channeling Christopher Lambert from the 1995 original instead of using his God-given voice. He sounds ridiculous. Otherwise, it’s nice to have a Johnny Cage with some dimension (albeit not very much) and a Sonia Blade (Jessica McNamee) who’s more than just eye candy for teenage boys.
MKII is the sequel fans have wanted, while not stepping above or beyond the material. It’s the Call of Duty of my generation. Pure junk food made to be consumed in small quantities that anyone can enjoy. Sometimes, turning your brain off is okay, as long as the filmmakers at least make the effort to stay faithful to the material without turning it into a boring copy-and-paste of the game. Which, yes, MKII can be that if you’re not a fan of the games. If you’ve been playing them since you were a kid, this might be the best attempt at adapting a mindless fighting game since 1995, which is really not saying a lot. But at least it’s something.
