Mortal Kombat II arrives to punch cinema in the plot glands (Mark Kermode movie review).
Mortal Kombat II has now cartwheeled into cinemas, dragging with it several realms, a worrying number of sharp objects, and the sort of dialogue that sounds as if it was chiselled into a gym locker by a barbarian with a media studies degree.
Based, of course, on the video game series created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, this latest bout is the sequel to 2021’s Mortal Kombat, and sees Simon McQuoid return to the director’s chair, presumably after it had been reinforced with dragon scales and health-and-safety warnings. Jeremy Slater provides the screenplay, while Karl Urban joins the cast as Johnny Cage, the washed-up martial arts movie star who discovers that being punched by interdimensional death-warriors is not, in fact, a useful career pivot.
The plot, in the noble tradition of Mortal Kombat, involves Earthrealm, Outworld, Edenia, Shao Kahn, Raiden, Sonya Blade, Kitana, Jade, Kano, Liu Kang, Jax, Scorpion, Sub-Zero-adjacent unpleasantness, mystical amulets, resurrected fighters, ancient grudges, and enough lore to make a Tolkien appendix glance nervously at the exit. There is an interdimensional tournament, because apparently Ofsted has yet to inspect Outworld’s safeguarding procedures.
Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage is the big new attraction here, swaggering into the franchise with the expression of a man who has read the script, noticed the body count, and decided his best survival strategy is sarcasm. Around him, the returning ensemble dutifully kicks, blocks, glowers, explodes and occasionally explains why someone from another realm is about to remove someone else’s spine with the solemnity of a magistrate reading parking fines.
It is fantasy, certainly, but fantasy that has eaten six protein bars, punched a gong, and declared war on subtlety. There are gods, princesses, tyrants, undead assassins and warriors with names that sound like someone dropped a Scrabble set into a volcano. In other words, all the wholesome family ingredients one expects from a saga where “Finish him!” counts as both a battle cry and editorial guidance.
The film has arrived to mixed reviews, although that rather misses the point. Asking whether Mortal Kombat II is refined cinema is a little like asking whether a chainsaw can play Debussy. It may not, but it can certainly make the front row pay attention. Early reaction suggests fans are getting more of what they wanted this time: more tournament, more famous characters, more fatalities, more “yes, that one from the game” moments, and fewer long stretches of people standing around looking as if they are trying to remember the Wi-Fi password for Earthrealm.
That said, this is still not a film one visits for delicate emotional shading, unless the shade in question is “blood mist”. Its pleasures appear to be cheerfully direct: loud fights, lurid fantasy backdrops, absurd mythology, and actors delivering portentous lines while dressed as if they lost a bet with a dungeon master. Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, we have always maintained there is room in cinema for the noble art of elaborately-costumed nonsense, provided it remembers to be entertaining while rearranging the furniture with someone’s face.
Mark Kermode has now stepped into the arena with his own video review, which is handy for those who prefer their critical verdicts delivered by someone who can detect both cinematic craft and nonsense fumes at fifty paces. Given the franchise’s history, one suspects the question is not whether Mortal Kombat II is tasteful, but whether it is the right kind of ridiculous.
And that, perhaps, is the real fatality here: not a crushed skull, severed limb or mystic amulet catastrophe, but the ongoing defeat of solemnity. Mortal Kombat II may be daft, thunderous, overstuffed and about as elegant as a wardrobe falling down a spiral staircase, but it knows what buttons it is pressing. For a film born from an arcade cabinet that once taught an entire generation to shout at pixels, that may be victory enough.
You can watch Mark Kermode’s review below and decide whether this is a flawless victory, a button-mashing draw, or simply another day at the office for cinema’s most aggressively upholstered fantasy tournament.
