SPOILER-FREE PLOT SUMMARY
While making an appearance at a comic convention, former Hollywood action star Johnny Cage (played by Karl Urban) is chosen by the Gods to be Earthrealm’s champion in the latest tournament of Mortal Kombat. Obviously skeptical when Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) and Sonya (Jessica McNamee) inform him that he’s been chosen, a portal opens that he decides to enter. Eventually refusing to stay and train, Cage returns to Earth and drowns his sorrows at a bar when he’s teleported without warning. He survives the fight against Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) of Outworld but only because she spared him. This serves as a good will gesture to Raiden and the champions of Earthrealm so her covert alliance with them is reinforced. They get a little too cavalier with their meetings, however, and Emporer Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) imprisons Kitana for her insolence. Meanwhile, Kano (Josh Lawson) is brought back to life by Kahn because he has an amulet that, when charged by Raiden’s power, makes it’s possessor immortal. Kahn knows, with the amulet bound to him, he can win the final tournament and, therefore, take Earthrealm as his own.
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
There are cash grabs and then there are cash grabs. MORTAL KOMBAT II is an unadulterated, embarrassingly obvious, unapologetic cash grab.
Johnny Cage might be the most uninteresting character in the franchise, dating all the way back to the original video game in 1992, yet is chosen to be the main focal point here. Sonya, arguably the second-most uninteresting character, plays a key role in the 2021 film but isn’t the “star” and that’s a key difference.
Another key difference from the original five years ago and it’s sequel is the feel of being grounded. The majority of 2021’s MORTAL KOMBAT took place on Earth in real places and with real structures, especially early on where the audience buys into the fantasy. In MORTAL KOMBAT II, however, there are CGI surroundings in just about every scene. The viewer has zero chance to feel any kind of authenticity in what they’re watching.
And let’s talk about the score. The filmmakers have to know that, when every scene feels like a “big finale,” none do. MORTAL KOMBAT II has about 18 different fight scenes inside its 116-minute run time. Cool, right? Well, approximately 14 of those have a finale-level accompanying score and that’s a lot of fatigue for the viewer, not to mention a reminder to check their watch.
Additionally, there are ADR issues, Urban looks likes he’s phoning it sometimes and when you repeatedly kill off characters only to resurrect them, you undermine the drama of any future deaths. That said, there are a few good moments as well. Changing each production company’s logo in the opening title sequence to match the original Mortal Kombat font is a nice touch, Tati Gabrielle is great in her limited screen time as Jade and the “story time” scene with Cage and the Tarkatan children is amazing. Unfortunately, that’s about it. Sure, there might be a couple of fun fight choreography moments but they easily disappear into the CGI-heavy virtual sets, exhausting score and lack of finality that anybody’s ever really dead.
Director Simon McQuoid and writer Jeremy Slater abandon just about every redeemable element of its predecessor. The 2021 installment isn’t a great film, by any means, but it is fun and it is re-watchable. And, quite honestly, that’s all you’re hoping for in a movie like this. Nobody’s asking for it to win Oscars but can it entertain? The answer here is no.
MORTAL KOMBAT II is completely unnecessary, offers the audience absolutely nothing unique and I hope New Line Cinema and Atomic Monster saved their profits from the 2021 installment because this very well could be the death knell for the franchise on the big screen. Remember when you were playing video games for too long and your mom would come over and pull the plug out of the wall? Yeah, well…
JKG SCORE: 3.0
Untitled Film Project 