by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $14.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Karl Urban, Adeline Rudolph, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Tati Gabrielle, Lewis Tan, Damon Herriman
Intro:
… a silly, splattery, funny and propulsive good time.
Mortal Kombat II is the fourth attempt at bringing the staggeringly violent fighting videogame series to the silver screen. The first crack was 1995’s Mortal Kombat from director Paul WS Anderson and honestly, it’s a pretty fun film. Charismatic actors, some decent visual effects and what remains one of the greatest soundtrack albums of all time. It was also not terribly violent and felt more like a Saturday morning kid’s cartoon than a faithful realisation of the spine ripping source material. Still, it made money which led to 1997’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, a legendarily bad film that features CGI so stunningly awful it almost counts as avant garde outsider art. Due to the mediocre box office and critical lambasting, the series was put on ice until 2021 when Aussie director Simon McQuoid used franchise necromancy to bring Mortal Kombat to life again. The result was very decent, with plenty for fans to latch onto including some spectacular gore, but the plot was a little milquetoast and forced audiences to spend too much time with bland characters. Well, somehow McQuoid has returned and he’s brought with him Mortal Kombat II, the most faithful adaptation of the games yet, which is mostly a good thing.
Mortal Kombat II wisely focuses the bulk of the plot around has-been ‘90s action star burnout, Johnny Cage (Karl Urban). Ol’ mate Johnny has been coasting on his ancient reputation for a while now and is more interested in getting drunk and pining for the good old days than keeping up with his martial arts. It’s something of a surprise, then, that he ends up being dragged into a certain fatal tournament with the other heroes of Earthrealm, Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), Jax (Mehcad Brooks), Cole Young (Lewis Tan) and Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano). They face the villainous Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) and his cadre of kicky-punchy nasties. Plus, we meet Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), who has her own axe to grind with Kahn and, uh, also Kano (Josh Lawson) has resurrected thanks to necromancer Quan Chi (Damon Herriman). Oh, and Baraka (CJ Bloomfield) is also here.
You’ve probably worked out that the plot of this film is a lot. There are so many threads and characters and lore dumps to include that, at times, it can all feel a bit dizzying. Happily, screenwriter Jeremy Slater keeps the fight scenes coming at a fairly constant pace, so if you don’t know your Earthrealms from your Netherrealms, you’ll be serviced with a brand spanking new action sequence before too long. The result is a film that honestly feels a lot like the story campaigns in modern Mortal Kombat games: cut scene, nonsense exposition, fight scene, repeat. Unsurprisingly, Karl Urban does great work here as Johnny Cage, chewing the scenery with great alacrity, and once again Josh Lawson steals almost every scene that he’s in. Jessica McNamee and Mehcad Brooks are also solid contenders, who do a lot of the meat and potatoes work well and Tati Gabrielle is absurdly hot as Jade. CJ Bloomfield also gives a solid performance as Baraka, even if his character does feel a bit like a glorified cameo. Because the cast is so massive, some actors do get short shrift and once again Tadanobu Asano’s Raiden feels sidelined and Chin Han’s Shang Tsung never quite takes flight.
Still and all, Mortal Kombat II is a film designed for the fans, and it’s hard to argue with the sheer chutzpah of realising such a convoluted, shockingly violent and deeply silly source material with such veracity. Absolute catnip for superfans of the game and probably slightly bewildering for everyone else, Mortal Kombat II is a silly, splattery, funny and propulsive good time.
