Movie Review: Mortal Kombat II

2021's Mortal Kombat-which was notable for being the first R-rated take on the legendary fighting game franchise-had two very common gripes from fans: 1. The titular tournament wasn't featured at all. 2.The main character (Lewis Tan's Cole Young) was an original creation for the movie who struggled to leave much of an impression when sharing the screen with MK's stable of iconic characters including Scorpion, Subzero and Sonya Blade. The creative team for the sequel Mortal Kombat II headed up by returning director Simon McQuoid and new screenwriter Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire) listened to fan feedback and came up with a really groundbreaking solution: Break out the tournament and make fan favorite character Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) the protagonist.  This application of constructive criticism/olive branch fan service is exactly the remedy MKII needed to improve upon its predecessor.  

Structurally, Mortal Kombat II tests the limits of the definition of narrative storytelling. About 90% of the film is a breathless upchucking of frantic, CGI gore-soaked fights, quips that were collected off the cutting room of all three Deadpool movies and lore dumps about magic amulets that make fighters invincible and warning of the horrors that would fall upon the people of Earth if a tyrannical monster from another dimension were to win the latest edition of an interdimensional martial arts tournament where the losing contestants are typically killed in an over-the-top gruesome manner.  These smooth-brained shenanigans will drive certain viewers absolutely fucking insane as they chug along for a little under two hours until it reaches a conclusion that features wait for it... a tease for the next movie. 

For me, this particular configuration of a Mortal Kombat movie is pretty ideal. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Mortal Kombat is a relentless stream of over-the-top fights and building a movie around this cornerstone of the game just feels right. Honestly, the only time I wasn't entertained was when they attempted to build an emotional core surrounding Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) and her quest for revenge against big bad Shao Khan (Martyn Ford) for killing her father when she was a kid. Trying to establish even just a single somewhat substantial arc for one of these characters is just entirely antithetical to the rest of the movie that is built around things like Character X ripping Character Y's head off or Character A sparing the life of Character B to remind the viewer that they're one of the good guys, and it shows in the complete lack of heart that is put into this subplot. There was really no need to try to apply some half-assed personal stakes to a plot that basically boils down to "if Shao Khan wins the tournament, he will be free to enslave the Earth" and it's really hard to argue that it serves any purpose other than to than fill up the small bursts of dead air that exist between fights. Just let the cartoonish martial arts do the talking and leave the emotional resonance to movies that don't include spontaneous trips to Hell, a recently resurrected man melting goons with the laser eye that some corpse paint-covered wizard conjured up in a few seconds upon request and an avatar for Jean-Claude Van Damme helping save Earth from the brink of extinction. 

Assuming Mortal Kombat III gets greenlit, the path forward for this franchise could suddenly get murkier. Doubling down on the tournament/lore formula could swiftly erase the goodwill that was built up here and pivoting to a weightier story just doesn't make much sense for a franchise that is at its worst when its characters aren't trying to fight each other to the death. While there are certainly far worse outcomes than a fighting game adaptation peaking with something that's on the level of Mortal Kombat II, there's still some room for these movies to grow in terms of leaning into the inherent ridiculousness of this material and upping the creativity of the fight choreography in a world where the possibilities for combat fireworks are basically endless (more stuff on the level of the Kung Lao vs. Liu Kang fight in this installment would be awesome). A flawless victory is in sight, the people behind the controller just have to lock in and put the work into making it happen. 

Grade: B