Crew
Director – Simon McQuoid, Screenplay – Jeremy Slater, Based on the Videogame Mortal Kombat (1992) Created by Ed Boon & John Tobias, Producers – Toby Emmerich, Todd Garner, Simon McQuoid, E. Bennett Walsh & James Wan, Photography – Stephen F. Windon, Music – Benjamin Wallfisch, Visual Effects Supervisor – Chris Godfrey, Production Design – Yohei Taneda. Production Company – Atomic Monster/Broken Road/Fireside Films.
Cast
Karl Urban (Johnny Cage), Adeline Rudolph (Princess Kitana), Jessica McNamee (Sonya Blade), Martyn Ford (Shao Kahn), Tadanobu Asano (Lord Raiden), Josh Lawson (Kano), Tati Gabrielle (Jade), Ludi Lin (Liu Kang), Mechad Brooks (Jax), Chin Han (Shang Tsung), C.J. Broomfield (Baraka), Hiroyuki Sanada (Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion), Joe Taslim (Bi-Han), Max Huang (Kung Lao), Damon Herriman (Quan Chi), Ana Thu Nguyen (Queen Sindel), Lewis Tan (Cole Young), Sophie Xu (Young Kitana), Desmond Chiam (King Jerrod)
Plot
In Edenia, the young Princess Kitana is witness as her father is forced to face off against Shao Kahn to decide the fate of their realm. Her father is defeated and killed with Kitana forced to become the adopted daughter of Shao Kahn. In Earthrealm in the present-day, Johnny Cage is a washed-up action star from the 1980s. He is approached by Lord Raiden and Sonya Blade and told that he is a destined defender of the Earth in the upcoming Mortal Kombat. He is taken to Raiden’s fortress to meet the other kombatants but walks away even though the fate of the Earth is at stake. However, as the Mortal Kombat begins, Johnny is teleported back in and forced to compete. The adult Kitana is fighting on Shao Kahn’s side but is secretly giving information to Raiden. Shao Kahn has an amulet that can make him immortal. He sends a resurrected Kung Lao in to deliver a fatal blow to Raiden so as to steal his power and activate the amulet. The rest of the Earthrealm defenders go on a risky quest to find a means of defeating the amulet and saving Raiden.
This is the eight film to be based on the Mortal Kombat videogame franchise. Everything began with Mortal Kombat (1992), a game that was initially released to video arcades and later for home computer. In the game, players can choose roles as various fighters where they would engage other opponents who came with various powers and abilities. The game was massively popular and there have been ten follow-up games, plus several ancillary games and a host of spinoffs.
One of the biggest spinoffs was the films beginning with Paul W.S. Anderson’s quite enjoyable Mortal Kombat (1995), although the burgeoning film franchise was then killed off by the much hated sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997). There was also a short-lived live-action tv show Mortal Kombat: Conquest (1998-9), which ran for 22 episodes, and the animated tv series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1996). More recently, there was a series of animated films Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge (2020), Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms (2021), Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind (2022) and Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match (2023). In the midst of these, the series was given a live-action reboot with Mortal Kombat (2021), produced by James Wan’s Atomic Monster production company.
Mortal Kombat II is a direct sequel to the 2021 film. It is again produced by James Wan and his Atomic Monster production company and has Simon McQuoid back in the director’s chair. There are return appearances from Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Mehcad Brooks, Lewis Tan, Ludi Lin, Joe Taslim, Tadanobu Asano, Chin Han and Hiroyuki Sanada in the same roles they played in the first film.
The 2021 film had the bad timing to come out during the Covid 19 pandemic lockdown of theatres when only limited theatrical venues were open. Despite which it did earn a not immodest $84 million worldwide, before being released to streaming but received a fairly “meh” response from critics and audiences. By contrast, Mortal Kombat II has received a much better response. I don’t put much score by Rotten Tomatoes but this is one instance where the difference is notable – 55% for the 2021 film, 65% for Mortal Kombat II.
The crippling failure of the 2021 film was that it was all origin story for several of the characters and focused on them in training in the lead-up to the Mortal Kombat. However, the very aspect that the game is founded on – two sides fighting one another for the fate of the Earth – was a promise that was withheld. Realising that omission, Mortal Kombat II gives us exactly what we have come to see – wall-to-wall kombat with various of the familiar characters from the game going up against each other.
The film’s greatest success is the casting of Karl Urban and in recasting Johnny Cage as a has-been 1980s action star. Cage’s introduction comes during a mock-up of an 80s action film (replete with a video logo for New Line Cinema) and we see he is now reduced to touring the convention circuit. The film is packed with snide lines from Urban comparing Raiden to Big Trouble in Little China (1986), the amulet to the One Ring in Lord of the Rings or putdowns of the John Wick franchise. (The only issue one might be one of timeline. All of the action stars of the 1980s – Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Seagal are now in their seventies, while Chuck Norris recently passed away at age 86. The youngest of the bunch Jean-Claude Van Damme is 65, retirement age in most countries. Even if you consider Johnny Cage more a 90s star, most of the action stars from that period – Dolph Lundgren, Mark Dacascos, Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson, Michael Dudikoff – are now in their mid-sixties up. Karl Urban is 53 and would have been in his early teens in the 1980s. It makes Johnny Cage seem not just a has-been but someone who is going to be fairly creaky as he goes into kombat).
The fun aspect of Mortal Kombat II is that the film buys into the absurdity of the various characters’ powers and just runs with it, hardly ever stopping to explain the why of any of it. The idea of Kitana going into battle using fans as weapons is an absurd one, but Simon McQuoid gives us entertainingly ridiculous scenes with her slicing throats, tossing her fans like boomerangs and even turning them into spinning scythes. Kano is just given an eye that is magicked up and tossed to him by Quan Chi and then finds it can deliver laser blasts, no other explanation. Other characters fire fireballs and energy blasts, Jade has a magic green energy staff, Sindel can use her voice as a sonic weapon, Sonya Blade has pink energy bands on her wrists that deliver power blasts and Kung Lao has a razor-tipped coolie hat. It is the sort of thing you are used to getting in anime but transplanted into a gritty action milieu.
The action comes furiously and quite a reasonable kinetic kick. My only issue with this is that the film has been shot with desaturated colours, which makes everything look like it is taking place in a dim room, while the sets have for the most part been contained to a series of streets and throne rooms (with one side diversion to the fiery pit of Netherealm). The dim lighting causes them to blur into looking like a generic interchangeable videogame background. Moreover, the fast pace and the muddy blur of the visual look has a tendency to cause the action to run into one long sequence. The scenes are so fast paced and there aren’t nearly enough standout moment in each to stand out. The one scene where the film slows down – Karl Urban’s mano-a-mano showdown with Baraka, the Tarkatan leader – feels like a comedic sequence that the whole film stops still to accommodate.
Trailer here