Wait, there’s a new Mortal Kombat movie? I vaguely remember the first, but it was an HBO Max release during the COVID pandemic. It was, I dunno, maybe fine. Like I said, I vaguely remember it. Regardless, there’s a sequel out, and since my girlfriend wanted to see The Sheep Detectives with me, I will be holding off until she’s free to see it. I don’t know when that will be. In the meantime, well, here’s Mortal Kombat II. Now, technically, there was a sequel to the original Mortal Kombat movie from the 90s, but all I know about that sequel is that an actress in purple tights has one really bad line read since it pops up all the time in “worst performances” video clips on YouTube.
If that character appears in this version, I can safely say that line is not reused.
The movie opens with the warlord Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) defeating the king of Edenia in Mortal Kombat and claiming his kingdom as his own. His people have won the tournament ten times in a row, and by the laws of the gods, that makes Edenia part of Outworld. Among the conquered people is the king’s young daughter Kitana (Sophia Xu), who as an adult (Adeline Rudolph) is a great fighter under the training of her friend/honorary sister/bodyguard Jade (Tati Gabrielle). Both are expected to be part of the great tournament of Mortal Kombat against Earthrealm, and should Shao Kahn’s forces prevail, then he will be able to claim Earthrealm as well. As Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) is down a fighter, the gods tell him he needs to recruit as the newest fighter washed-up 90s action star Johnny Cage (Karl Urban).
Small problem as Cage isn’t interested in participating in any tournament where contestants fight to the death. Factor in as well that, even by his own admission, he wasn’t even doing his own stunts in his movies–there’s a clip of one of Cage’s movies, and in one of the more creative points in the movie, it is deliberately bad, but more on that further down in the review–and Cage is far from his peak in terms of skills and ability. However, the gods pick the fighters whether the fighters want to fight or not, so Cage will be in the tournament, and there’s one other, little problem: the already nearly unbeatable Shao Kahn is looking for ways to cheat. Will Earthrealm fall?
Well…this is one cliched movie. There aren’t any real surprises. The characters are paper-thin, but I’m not sure anyone who comes to a Mortal Kombat movie is there for deep characters, and this is a series where death has no meaning anyway. In-universe explanations bring character who died in the first movie back, and surviving the first movie is no guarantee that the character will survive this one. That said, none of the deaths particularly surprised me, and none of the actors seem to be trying very hard, including Urban with his now-you-hear-it-now-you-don’t American accent. I can see where Urban’s Cage is meant to be something of a comedic relief in a movie no one should be taking all that seriously anyway, but I didn’t find him particularly amusing, and the only actor who seems to be injecting anything like life into his character is Josh Lawson as a resurrected Kano.
Now, what anyone who comes to a movie like this really wants is good action scenes with a gory ending, and the endings are gory, but the special effects budget comes into play here as fighters use their special powers as much as they do their martial arts skill. As such, the fights didn’t do much for me. There are moments that are ambitious and meant to be impressive but never quite make it that far. There are sets that clearly were taken from the game. But this doesn’t do much for me as someone who is not much off a gamer, though I did play a Gameboy version of the original game back in the day. I will say there is one fight in the middle of the movie, one involving Urban’s Cage, some jokes made from the other heroic characters on the side that seem fresher than the other jokes in the movie, that comes closest to working. That might be because it was one of the few that seemed to rely on actual skill from the actors and stunt performers and less CGI fire and lightning. All I know is, I found this movie more dull than anything else.
Grade: C-
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