Mortal Kombat II is the first one of these new films that actually feels like the game, and the reason is simple, the fatalities are back and they’re gruesome. Not a quick cutaway, not a bit of CGI blood and then on to the next scene, but proper over-the-top, ripped-in-half, that-can’t-be-legal finishing moves, and every time one landed I was grinning. It’s a lot of fun. The original 1995 movie is still the best Mortal Kombat film as far as I’m concerned, that hasn’t changed, but this one is a much more worthy successor than the 2021 reboot ever was. And it’s been a good year for game adaptations that remember what people liked about the games in the first place, which wasn’t something I’d have said a few years ago before Resident Evil got its own reboot this year too.
Finally, the gruesome deaths the game always had
This is the big one for me. Mortal Kombat was never a game about story, it was about the fights and then that moment where the screen goes dark, the voice says “Finish him” and you find out exactly how nasty the developers were feeling that week. The films have always danced around that, the original because it was a PG-13 movie in 1995 and the 2021 one because, well, it did have a few kills but it felt like it was holding back on most of them. This time they don’t hold back at all. Shao Kahn takes King Jerrod apart in the opening flashback, ripping his hands off before finishing him with the hammer, and that sets the tone pretty quickly for what kind of film this is going to be.
And it keeps going. Sonya punches straight through Sindel with her energy rings, Liu Kang drags Kung Lao onto his own spinning hat, Scorpion slices Sub-Zero’s shadow form in half from the bottom up, Johnny Cage gets his own big finishing move. Each one is staged like the game, with the build-up and the pause and then the payoff, and the film is a much more faithful experience for it because it trusts the source material instead of trying to apologise for it. The tournament itself helps too, they actually run it as a tournament with rounds and fighters stepping up, which is what the 2021 film kept promising and then never quite delivered. Is the plot deep? No. Shao Kahn wants Earthrealm, a bunch of heroes try to stop him, there’s an amulet. Doesn’t matter. Nobody plays Mortal Kombat for the lore cutscenes either.
The original is still the best, but this is the real sequel
I’ll keep saying it, the 1995 Mortal Kombat is still the one. It had the cheese, it had the cast, it had the music, and it had this brilliant mix of taking the tournament seriously while also knowing exactly how silly it all was. Nothing since has quite matched it, and this one doesn’t either. But Mortal Kombat II is the first film since then that feels like it’s in the same spirit, loud and colourful and happy to just be a Mortal Kombat movie, and that’s a big step up from the 2021 reboot, which spent half its runtime on a brand new character nobody had asked for and then ended right as the tournament was supposedly about to start.
Karl Urban as Johnny Cage is a lot of why it works. He plays him as a washed-up action star who’s way past his best and still thinks he’s the coolest guy in the room, and it lands really well, he’s smug and funny and gets some of the biggest laughs in the film. Anyone who’s watched him as Butcher in The Boys knows he can do smug better than almost anyone, and here he gets to do it for laughs. Adeline Rudolph’s Kitana is the other standout, and the fan fight with Shao Kahn near the end is easily one of the best moments in the film.
Where I’m still not sold is the big bad himself. I still liked the old ogre Goro from the original movie, that huge four-armed animatronic monster stomping around the arena, over what we get here, which is basically a very big guy in a helmet. Shao Kahn has the size and he’s got the hammer, and he kills a lot of people, but there’s something about a practical monster that’s actually there on set with the actors that a man in armour just doesn’t match. In the 1995 film you could tell the actors were squaring up to something real, it moved a bit strangely and it looked slightly ridiculous, which was half the charm. The 2021 film went the CGI route with its Goro and he never felt as solid, and this time there’s no Goro at all, so Shao Kahn has to carry the whole big-scary-monster job on his own and he isn’t really built for it.
Saying goodbye to some of the 2021 crowd
It was nice to see a lot of the characters from the last one come back. Sonya, Jax, Kano, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Raiden, they’re all here, and Josh Lawson’s Kano is still a scene-stealer every time he opens his mouth. But it was also good, and I mean that, to see some of the less useful and less interesting ones killed off. The 2021 film had too many people and not enough for most of them to do, and this one clears the decks in the most Mortal Kombat way possible, which is to say violently and in front of a cheering crowd.
Cole Young is the obvious one. He was the brand new hero the last film was built around, and he never really felt like he belonged in the Mortal Kombat world, so when Shao Kahn makes very short work of him it honestly felt like the film agreeing with everyone. Jax goes too, which stung a bit more, and so does Kung Lao, and even Liu Kang doesn’t make it through the final round in one piece. That’s a lot of the old cast gone in one movie and I didn’t mind at all. It makes the stakes feel real for once, you’re not sitting there assuming everyone survives because they’re on the poster, and it leaves room for the characters who actually belong at the centre of this story, Johnny and Kitana especially.
And the ones who are left get better material for it. Kano is the best example, he’s still a loudmouth and still entirely out for himself, but this time he turns on Shao Kahn at the right moment and ends up in the Netherrealm alongside Johnny, which is a pairing I didn’t know I wanted until I saw it. Throw in Scorpion turning up as Hanzo’s spirit for the fight against Bi-Han and that whole stretch is pure fan service in the best way. I enjoyed it a lot more than anything the old team got up to last time.
There’s still a few too many characters overall, if I’m being picky. Baraka, Jade, Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, Sindel, Bi-Han and Scorpion are all in the mix as well, and some of them get a fight and a couple of lines and that’s about it. But it’s Mortal Kombat. The whole appeal of the games was a big roster you could pick from, and the film is clearly having fun ticking them off.
And then the theme kicks in
The thing I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I did was the ending. When it all wraps up and that kick ass score comes in to close the movie out, it’s the theme everyone knows, the one that’s been stuck in people’s heads since 1995, and it’s a new version of the old anthem with the announcer shouting out the roster. It’s loud, it’s cheesy, it’s absolutely the right call, and it sends you out of the film on a high instead of a fade-out. It’s the same thing as the fatalities really, the film knows what people want from Mortal Kombat and gives it to them instead of worrying about whether it’s too cheesy.
The good news is that a third film is apparently already in the works, and I’m hoping it actually gets made, because I’d absolutely watch it. With most of the old guard gone and Kitana now on the throne of Edenia, there’s a lot of room for new faces, and there are plenty of fighters from the games still waiting for their turn. Just maybe find room for a proper monster this time.
Which fatality in Mortal Kombat II was your favourite, and did you miss Goro as much as I did? Tell me in the comments.
1 comment