RIOTUS

I did not like the last Mortal Kombat film that came out in 2021. I felt the last film added an original point of view character and brought the story more relatable, but hurt some of the more fantastical nature, along with its martial arts film genre influence. Yet I was in the minority, and it was one of the most-watched films on HBO Max back when it came out.

When they announced a sequel was coming, I was not looking forward to it. I had my hesitations, as over the years I’ve become invested in the MK storyline. Back in the day and even now, I’m a Street Fighter person, but the story in Mortal Kombat has always been interesting and, in the modern era, been very well told. So I went into Mortal Kombat II with an open mind, and let’s get into what I saw.

This movie starts where the last one ended, with the tournament about to start. Raiden and his remaining champions prepare to face Shao Khan’s champions to defend Earthrealm from being taken over by him. Our two new entry point characters are Kitana, played by Adeline Rudolph, the adoptive daughter of Shao Khan (Martyn Ford), through being conquered. She works against Khan in secret to get revenge for the death of her father. On the other end, we have Johnny Cage, played by Karl Urban, who is a down-on-his-luck old martial arts movie star, who learns he’s the last champion Raiden needs to face Outworld. Cage thinks he’s not the right guy, but it doesn’t matter what he thinks as he’s brought in.

So, what does Mortal Kombat II do right in comparison to the first one? Well, it has the tournament, which was missing in the first movie. The film is filled with awesome one-on-one fight setpieces. The care they took to recreate the different stages for the characters to fight on, along with mixing the special moves with the fight choreography, was a delight to see. I giggled with glee every time I saw Shao Khan use his green glowing shoulder charge. The fights are clean and easy to see and read. They were brutal and captured the flavor and style you’d expect from Mortal Kombat.

Ludi Lin returning as Liu Kang is a standout. His fight scene with Max Huang as Kung Lao is the standout of the whole movie to me. Every move was believable, and they brought the right amount of emotion to the fight between the two Shaolin Monks.

Urban is hilarious here as Cage and ends up being a way better audience stand-in than Lewis Tan‘s Cole Young in the last one. Being one of the main characters from the series, overall, audiences have an idea of who Johnny is, and Urban’s great, sarcastic comedic timing works in many of the scenes he’s in. It’s fun to see one of the core characters back in the movies.

I also like Mehcad Brooks as Jax in this one a lot more than the last movie. He feels so much more comfortable playing the character this time. He’s good with most of the cast and has a good scene with Tati Gabrielle‘s Jade, whom I also like in this. I’ve never seen her give a bad performance. While they don’t give her as much to do here other than be a character to bounce Kitana off of, she is also replacing another classic character that debuted with Kitana in the original Mortal Kombat II game.

What didn’t I like, though? Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) is a McGuffin in this. He’s barely a wise mentor here and instead is just a random power source to get control over. Shang Tsung (Chin Han), the classic evil omnipresent antagonist of the series, is pretty marginalized and ends up being like a sniveling peon that you see in a cartoon. Never getting even a chance to bring a fraction of the energy Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa got back in the still superior original film from 1995. The same for Damon Herriman as the necromancer Quan Chi, who is quite important to MK stories overall, especially regarding Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada) and Sub-Zero/Bi-Han (Joe Taslim), but for the most part, he’s just a frustrated bad wizard who has to suffer fools all the time. While funny, the role could be better and add a little more complexity to even a light action film, especially if the plan is for it to be a franchise affair.

Sigh, and to Scorpion and Bi-Han, I don’t think they had a real plan, but wanted them in this for fan bait. While I like Scorpion, his not being important to the ongoing story in this version just feels like an unnecessary tangent. If you’re going to give me Scorpion fan service, you can at least give me his teleport punch. With Bi-Han and his transformation into Noob Saibot, it’s mostly just a throwaway to have this cool-looking shadow ninja in the movie, as he looks in the modern games. It’s okay, but again, without some of the other story points, who cares? No second good Sub-Zero, no shocking return. It’s just, oh yeah, he died, and I need him back. He’s back.

This lack of care of tone or story carries over from the last one, and it’s the one thing that bothers me most. Kano is funny and likable, so he can’t be a bad guy anymore. He’s a loveable scoundrel. Now, Josh Lawson is great at this, and he’s still amazingly funny here, along with partnering up with Urban for some strong comedic buddy duo back and forth. Can’t he be an actual bad guy? That’s funny?

There’s a lot more stuff I could nitpick, and I didn’t like the ending much at all. I feel that if you’re going to change a story, it should be for the better and not just an arbitrary change that misses the point of the larger story you are adapting. It bothers me in most things, but it does bother me the most in adaptations that people find less important than adapting other types of stories.

It’s in Mortal Kombat‘s huge success over the years and longevity, with the storytelling getting better as time went on. While in the end the film fell a bit flat for me with its resolution, it was a very entertaining movie and worth watching again for the fights. The audience I saw it with were excited with their cosplay on as different characters and shirts, and they left happy. I think that’s a good thing, and the filmmakers learned from the mistakes of the last one. If Mortal Kombat II does very well at the box office, maybe they can get a chance to finally make an outstanding Mortal Kombat movie.