Review: Only superfans will get a kick out of ‘Mortal Kombat II’
2026 / Dir. Simon McQuoid
Rating: 3/5
Watch if you like: screaming things like “Finish him!” and “Get over here!” at random people as ‘90s techno music blasts from the heavens, heralding your ascension to godhood.
Ranging from awesomely stupid to eyerollingly mediocre, Mortal Kombat II—where they actually get to go to Mortal Kombat, unlike the 2001 reboot—gets the job done. That job, of course, is seeing a woman rip apart a man’s head with bladed steel fans and a dude being impaled on a razor-blade hat. In other words: When it comes to storytelling, don’t expect a whole lot.
You don’t need to have seen the first movie, which was a fun COVID-era diversion, since Simon McQuoid’s follow-up strangely sidelines most of the characters he established in the first outing in favor of newcomers Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) and Kitana (Adeline Rudolph, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina). Everyone else gets shortchanged with minimal storybeats, although you’ll still get to see Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) shoot fire dragons from his fists and Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) pummel a witch in the spike pit.
The storyline is paint-by-numbers fantasy save-the-world stuff that I don’t need to get into, but it gets a shot in the arm whenever Karl Urban is on screen. His Johnny Cage is a has-been action star first introduced via a scene from his film “Uncaged Fury,” where he comically beats a group of goons and jumps over a rocket. He’s initially a weakling compared to his fellow earthlings, but spends most of the scenes making fun of whatever’s going on.
The film does its best when it embraces its video game roots and goes for the absurd, whether that’s when Urban or a revived Kano (Josh Lawson) is on screen, or during the many entertaining fight scenes that thankfully pop up in quick succession. The fights are creative and genuinely entertaining, recreating the side-scroller style of the games and typically ending with some absurd “fatality” like in the games. Fans will enjoy seeing most of the game’s characters get at least one action moment in classic locations like the acid bath arena. That said, the CGI isn’t going to win any awards, and a section in the “netherworld” late in the movie looks particularly lackluster.
When we’re not getting fights or Johnny Cage, the movie is bland and overly serious with disposable dialogue. The lighting is pretty dark and muddy most of the time, the costumes look cheap, and a lot of talented actors like Tati Gabrielle are wasted. Even the setup for the tournament itself, where the fighters are beamed into different arenas rather than establishing any real tournament structure or intrigue, is a dull choice. But hey, we get a rematch between Scorpion and Sub-Zero from beyond the grave, and that’s all you want from this anyway.
I wouldn’t rush out to theaters to see this unless you’re a Mortal Kombat super fan. This is the kind of movie, though, that you throw on when you’re sick and stuck on the couch, or you come home after a couple of beers and have fun watching people beat and mutilate each other for the fate of the universe.