MORTAL KOMBAT II Review: Tests Your Might...And Your Patience

When confronted by a lightning god who requests the expert fighting skills of the best of the best to save the world, washed-up B-movie star Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) smirks: "Mortal Kombat? What is that, a fan film?"

He's on the money. Not only is Simon McQuoid's faithful sequel to his 2021 reboot of the Mortal Kombat franchise a film catering for its fans' insatiable blood lust, it follows the trend of videogame cinema that feels made by its fans.

Of course, slavish development from the Warner Bros. Legendary pipeline and production duties from James Wan have made sure the money is on the screen, elevating this way past Cage's own preconceptions about being cast in an off-brand Tubi Original. Yet for as troubled a property as Ed Boon and John Tobias' sidescrolling beat-'em-up classic has proven on the big screen, it should be heartening that there's finally a Mortal Kombat film to satisfy everyone ... right?

Let's catch up on how this started. In Mortal Kombat (2021), the fate of Earth(realm) was threatened by sneaky sorcerer Shang Tsung (Chin Han) and his scheme to eliminate all competition before the upcoming Mortal Kombat tournament; the nefarious baddies of Outworld had won nine tournaments in a row, and a potential tenth would spell doom for our idyllic world.

We were introduced to this through the naive eyes of Cole Young (Lewis Tan), an original character and low-level MMA fighter whose mandatory team-up with franchise favourites Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Jax (Mehcad Brooks), Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) and Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) added him into the illustrious roster of Earthrealm's finest warriors.

Now, in Mortal Kombat II, the focus shifts to two new main characters, centring first on corrupted princess of Edenia Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) and then later on wise-cracking beer-chugging former cool guy Johnny Cage, widening the scope of the world now it's actually time for the tournament to begin. Also fresh to this version of the Mortal Kombat universe is masked barbarian leader Shao Khan (Martyn Ford), whose quest for immortality sees him pull some even dirtier tactics than Shang Tsung's underhanded number two, seeking the cheat code-coded Amulet of Shinnok to guarantee a flawless victory over his foes.

The main selling-point of Mortal Kombat II is its patented promise of actually having a proper series of decisive fights in it, unlike its first chapter. In getting to the tournament, McQuoid has fun mounting an episodic series of brawls on atmospheric stages, cherrypicking well-matched characters with different strengths and placing them either side of the screen to cheekily recreate frames from the games. It's often very amusing how literally McQuoid takes visualising the game itself; whenever a fight happens, a helpful scoreboard of flaming red and blue urns appear in the sky, just to remind you of the stakes when the film otherwise plays extremely fast and loose with them.

Eschewing rules of life and death with gleeful abandon, characters who suffered a grisly demise first time round are resurrected by necromancer Quan Chi (an unrecognisable Damon Herriman) or are simply bound to the hellish Netherrealm, which hero and villain alike can very easily pop in and out of like they've got an all-day bus pass. As a result, McQuoid and screenwriter Jeremy Slater can have unlimited chances at bringing back people after they've had their heads squished with giant mallets or been split asunder by saw blades, which is as absolute an imagining of the actual game's rules as you can get. The trade-off is that it's nigh-on impossible to feel anything when you know anyone is just one spell away from being brought back next time.

The flippant and fickle nature of killing off characters does lend to the R-rated mayhem sorely missing from the 1995 take on Mortal Kombat (helmed with otherwise pleasing hyper-active energy by Paul WS Anderson), which guarantees some hooting and hollering from anyone wanting proper fatalities from material as inherently sadistic as this. The arbitrary structure of fetch-quests for magical items and mini-game skirmishes for unlockable characters becomes an appropriately nebulous clothesline for the grand guignol digital splatter, perhaps ultimately overdelivering on the loud, numbing gore that starts to beg the question "is it possible to adapt Mortal Kombat into a wholly enjoyable film?"

The cast make a good-enough go of trying to convince you as much. Currently growling his way somewhat more successfully through the final season of The Boys, Karl Urban does an acceptable job of bringing a character as silly and broad as Johnny Cage to life, still shakily accented but making a decent stab at the preening and self-loathing duality of a former movie star given one last chance at greatness. His good guy co-stars are there just to farm aura and quip away in between the punches, yet it's still Tadanobu Asano's Lord Raiden that makes the biggest impression from the sidelines; his voice exudes pure gravitas when the film around him seems fairly flimsy.

The villains are allowed to have a bit more fun with things. The huge presence that is Martyn Ford is appropriately booming in both frame and tone as arch-villain Shao Khan, and his lackeys Chin Han and Damon Herriman couldn't be slimier even if they'd just won a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award. The highlight remains Josh Lawson's Outback shithouse Kano, a laser-eyed mercenary whose loyalties are as loose as his profane lips, bagging him the biggest laughs in the whole, overstuffed picture.

Sporting more champions than a Game of the Year Gold Edition, McQuoid and Slater flirt with the very real danger of Mortal Kombat II being an exhausting, indulgent experience. It is both in equal measure; just indulgent enough to satisfy the hardcore fans, and exhausting for everyone else. Its daft pleasures are evident, if overegged, resulting in some blood-drunk amusement that eventually turns into dizzied CTE.

With a third instalment clearly set up with a commitment to bringing everyone back and no finishing move in sight, McQuoid's Mortal Kombat cycle is proving to be a test of his might...and our patience.

The film is now playing wide in theaters nationwide, distributed via Warner Bros. Visit their official site for locations and showtimes.