‘Mortal Kombat II’ Review

Midway through watching ‘Mortal Kombat II’, the latest repetitive and self-serious installment in the franchise, I found myself wondering what exactly would constitute a good ‘Mortal Kombat’ movie. As a video game franchise, ‘Mortal Kombat’ was never known for compelling themes, rich characters or clever potting. No, what made the franchise popular was the opportunity to watch cool looking characters fight one another and, at the end of said fight, one of them might have their spine ripped out. Not exactly the source material that lends itself to a successful narrative feature.

‘Mortal Kombat II’ is heavy on its own mythology, with bad acting and worse writing but enough one on one fight scenes to satisfy diehard fans who simply want to watch their favorite characters duke it out, even if the mediocre CGI fatalities somehow look worse than the video game graphics.

Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) is a washed up Hollywood action star who finds himself selected to represent Earth in the next Mortal Kombat tournament against the evil Emperor Shao Khan (Martyn Ford) and his elite fighters from Outworld. Having defeated Earth’s warriors nine times in a row, Outworld will win dominion over Earth with another victory. Cage finds himself fighting alongside the handpicked warriors for Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), the God of Thunder, even as he insists he is only an actor and is out of his element.

But this isn’t just Johnny Cage’s story. It is also the story of Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), who fights for Outworld in the tournament after having been enslaved and taken as Shao Khan’s adoptive daughter after her realm and her father were defeated in the tournament decades before.

By committing neither to Johnny Cage or Kitana as the main character, ‘Mortal Kombat II’ has bipolar tonal problems. Kitana’s story is dark, tragic and oh so serious whereas Cage’s story is fish-out-of-water comedy. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ inspiration for Cage’s story, with Cage as this universe’s answer to Kurt Russell. But that film is such a subversive delight because Russell, despite his movie star looks, bravado and main character status, is essentially bumbling comic relief as all of the more competent characters surrounding him advance the plot and defeat the evil.

Alas, this film is not that interesting, with Cage instead going on a more trite hero’s journey of his own, just with more attempts at comedy. Unfortunately, these attempts at comedy seem unnatural to the filmmakers, consisting of pop culture references that will surely date this already dated concept and limited almost exclusively to Karl Urban and Josh Lawson as Kano, who try their best but can only do so much with such hackneyed material.

The world building is so ponderous, that whenever an action sequence begins, no matter how dull that may be, it was a welcome break from the otherwise terminal exposition. By choosing to stay so loyal to the format of the video games, ‘Mortal Kombat II’ struggles with bizarre pacing given that so many fight scenes are inserted with a wide range of characters, some of whom would surely only matter to somebody who has studied the video game lore like some sacred texts.

For fanatics of the ‘Mortal Kombat’ franchise, ‘Mortal Kombat II’ will surely check all the boxes, delivering its iconic characters and their trademark catch phrases with desperation to illicit a standing ovation and secure another sequel. But for those who find the video games merely a hyper violent curiosity, this will only cause boredom, eye rolls and maybe the occasional smirk.

Mortal Kombat II
Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore, and language.
Running Time: 1 hour and 56 minutes

Director Simon McQuoid
Writers Jeremy Slater
Stars Karl Urban, Adeline Rudolph, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Tati Gabrielle, Lewis Tan, Damon Harriman, Chin Han, Tadanobu Asano, Joe Taslim, Hiroyuki Sanada
Rating R
Running Time 116 Minutes
Genres Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi