Warner Bros. is back with another attempt at something that’s never been done, making a good Mortal Kombat movie. Does it succeed? Not really.
This sequel tries to approach everything more carefully as the plot follows the game more than the previous entry. Shao Kahn, the emperor of Outworld, is on the cusp of conquering Earthrealm, but he must secure one more tournament win in Mortal Kombat. While I would have preferred this portrayal of Shao Kahn to have more beef on his frame, he ends up as a good villain. Cartoonishly evil and immensely powerful, it’s a good rendition of one of gaming's most notorious bad guys.
If the marketing doesn’t make it clear, the other big deal about this sequel is that Karl Urban is playing Johnny Cage. This version of Johnny is a washed-up action star who peaked in the ‘90s, but still has a legitimate fighting background. Urban does a good job with the material, and the character has his own arc about finding his confidence again. It’s fine, but it doesn’t add any deep layers to a character that’s already known as more of a shallow clown.
Other characters that fans of the games would expect also make their debut. Liu Kang, Quan Chi, Baraka, Kitana, and others. It’s nice to see more familiar faces, but it also means the plot has to juggle more things at once. One hour and 40 minutes is simply not enough time to make a good adaptation of the second game’s story.
One of the better aspects of the film is the fight choreography. The amount of camera cuts in a fight isn’t excessive, so you witness good sequences of moves without being jarring to watch. Still, given that this is a Mortal Kombat movie, I wish there were more blood. There are some brutal kills, but even an R-rated film doesn’t come close to the over-the-top violence of the games.
That’s really the fatal flaw of the movie; it tries to live in two worlds. In one, it attempts to make a traditional movie plot with a half-baked attempt at adapting the game’s stories and characters into a condensed form. In the other, it’s a tongue-in-cheek romp full of nods to the games and quips, but it doesn’t fully commit to the sheer stupidity and vast lore that longtime fans love. Thus, Mortal Kombat II is just mediocre all around.
This film plants some seeds for future stories, similar to the previous one, which is bold, considering the five years it took to be released. It seems this approach to adapting Mortal Kombat would be better suited to a show. That would at least give them creators more time to flesh out the characters.
While Mortal Kombat II is far from terrible, there’s nothing that makes it especially compelling. It’s fine, and it’s forgettable. Worse, it’s a movie that doesn’t appeal to people who have no attachment to the games or to those who are fans of them. If you want some background noise for 100 minutes once this is on streaming, then it will do the job.
Author Bio:
Ulises Duenas is a senior writer and film critic at Highbrow Magazine.
For Highbrow Magazine