Directed By Simon McQuoid

Starring – Karl Urban, Ludi Lin, Jessica McNamee

The Plot – The fan favorite champions, now joined by Johnny Cage (Urban) himself, are pitted against one another in the ultimate battle to defeat the dark rule of Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) that threatens the very existence of the Earth realm and its defenders.

Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore, and adult language.

Mortal Kombat II | Official Trailer II

POSITIVES

Learning from the past mistakes and universal critiques of the series’ divisive predecessor, McQuoid has crafted a superior sequel in nearly every measurable facet of this movie’s execution, in turn solidifying a brutally bloody and spine-shattering spectacle that feels as closely seamless to the exaggerated violence of their video game counterparts as any gaming adaptation to date. For starters, the screenplay from newly acquired screenwriter, Jeremy Slater, is far from perfect, but it doesn’t feel like false advertising to the expectations of its audience, this time while wasting little to no time in setting the movements to motions with the arrival of the big tournament, which in turn helps maintain this breakneck consistency in the pacing of the storytelling that constantly kept me enthralled throughout 104 minutes of screentime. Perhaps as a response to the fandom’s incessant displeasure of Cole, the previous film’s manufactured protagonist who bore no historical lineage to the expanse of the games, he’s now moved to the background of the narrative, not exactly in ways that he’s all together forgotten from the fray, but in ways that clearly indicate that he’s not the force to be reckoned with that leads this group into the fate of the tournament, instead opting for a dual narrative of characters Princess Katana and Johnny Cage, whom each enact redemption stories in entirely unique but all together entertainingly engaging fashion. While these two are responsible for the only arcs of layered characterization throughout the engagement, they are effective at conjuring the underlining humanity factor that can occasionally get lost in the shuffle of so many supernatural capabilities and lethal personalities continuously orchestrating them, and though fans of this franchise clamor for action over thematic substance, it’s nice to see that Slater values the past as a means for present perspective, with a duo of characters as psychologically grounded as any that have ever been a part of the four adaptations within this franchise. The script also throws enough curveballs in the expansive execution of its narrative and ensuing characters to ever keep from feeling unavoidably predictable in what’s to come, particularly in the unforeseen format of the tournament, which immediately surmises enough situational stakes and adversity for these characters to spontaneously overcome, regardless of experience or training. As to where characters like Cage or Katana hold a grave importance to this exploration, the entirety of the underdeveloped characters surrounding them breeds an expendable essence as a result of the script choosing to spend so little time developing them, in turn conveying that any of these characters could shuffle off of this mortal coil as a result of one wrong move or mistimed defense. Speaking of the aforementioned fights, they’re much improved from those of its predecessor, particularly with some kinetic fight choreography and unrelenting urgency in McQuoid’s direction that certainly kept me on the edge of my seat with my expectations, even despite a repetitious structure of back-to-back sequencing during the second act that could’ve exhausted its appeal long before the film’s most meaningful of moments. As expected, the film takes ample opportunity expressing the violent freedoms of its cherished R-rating, both with creative kills and candid carnage that will tenderly tickle the tummies of longtime gore enthusiasts from the game, even with a much more subdued enacting of C.G blood that oversaturated the canvas of its artificially overwhelming predecessor. On top of this, the direction from McQuoid does openly embrace some of the comedic sensibilities that were prominent throughout the first film, but this time with a far tighter grasp on the integrity of the material that ultimately keeps the gags from directly compromising on the tension of the depicted dynamic. Such an example pertains to Johnny Cage’s intrusion upon the village of some familiarly beastly creatures, with his vulnerability factor utilized to correlate how over his head he is in matching strength and speed with something so imposing. This is a moment that could easily send the film into the kind of campy consistencies that squandered ambition during Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, but instead corresponds seamlessly to the kinds of detrimental danger and helplessness that makes Johnny the perfect audience surrogate to reassert the plot points of the first film, especially considering Karl Urban’s version of the decorated movie star is sure to ruffle some feathers with what people are expecting from his portrayal. Urban as Cage undeniably masters the larger than life screen presence of a movie star who is all together out of his element, but leaves the flashier side of the character completely unaddressed in a portrayal evoking more of the introspective outpouring than we would ever expect from him, and considering Urban brings such stoic gravitas to the portrayal, in ways that empathize every bit as much as they inspire, you start to understand how much his presence was missed from the predecessor. Likewise, Martyn Ford’s antagonistic turn as Shao Kahn feels like a breath of fresh air to my seething hatred of Chin Han’s unimposing turn as Shang Tsung during the first movie, even as the entirety of his portrayal deduces him behind a mask that obscures his expressive emotionality. Between his gigantic stature and unwavering arrogance during fights, Ford feels like the fully fledged embodiment of the undeniable force and the immovable object, in ways that immediately capture the attention of any room that he graces with his presence, and though Kahn isn’t the toughest role to grasp in personality, Ford inflicts the kind of sternness to Kahn’s interactions that make every foretelling feel prophetic, especially as a character who is not afraid to get his hands dirty in the fights of the tournament.

NEGATIVES

While Mortal Kombat II is an obvious improvement on its predecessor, it still falls suspect to some of the same unfortunate tendencies, particularly in the inconsistencies of a screenplay, which makes this finished product feel like a hack-and-slash victim of frequent rewrites that floundered its once ambitious outlook. Similar to that first movie, the dimensions of characterization for a majority of these supporting roles goes virtually absent throughout the movie’s duration, where the increased numbers of those depicted leaves most characters fading into the backgrounds, instead of serving as a meaningful component to the movie’s integral foundation. I previously mentioned Cole, but even characters like Sonya Blade and Jax, who served as such a pivotal driving force to the original movie’s quest for tournament superiority, are now simply relegated to just extras who frivolously make up the necessary requirements of this team, without the need to flesh them out in ways that maximize their growth between installments, and considering the tournament itself even becomes trivialized in its important usage between halves, it makes me feel like the documented reshoots that extended the movie’s production an additional six months served as a result of last minute rewrites stemming from the lack of confidence among its many producer cooks in the creative kitchen. As for the tournament, the movie is flowing along seamlessly throughout its first half, until an unforeseen amulet of a plot device is introduced into the fight for power within the fray, leaving the importance of this generational affair feeling less important the longer that is dissipates from the surface. To be fair, the script does keep the point standings in mind with the interpretation of the audience, all the way until its crucial climax, but the movie unceremoniously pauses its progress for around forty minutes, so that it can enact the power dynamics assembled from an abundance of motivational shifts between its characters, and considering it eviscerates the urgency in the narrative, it undersells the stakes towards a fight that immediately becomes one-sided, and it makes me wish that the entirety of this movie remained firmly concerned with just the tournament, especially being that it is the fight for interworld dominance. On top of this, the tournament doesn’t exactly live up to the biggest rule associated with Mortal Kombat, in that fights only end in death when the aggressor decides so. This is an immense letdown for someone who not only values the magnitude of brutal fatalities that serve as a pay-off to the execution of the conflict, but also an obvious way out to keep some characters alive, in order to have an impact later, which in turn takes away the risk of magnitude associated with a tournament involving the world at stake. Aside from the screenplay, the film’s production is glaringly flawed with some uninspiring set designs and underwhelming special effects, that fail to take full advantage of the 80 million dollar budget that definitely demanded more in its visuals. On the former, while I do commend the approach to implement some of the familiar game stages that prospered in some of its earlier installments, most of them are captured artificially with C.G that lacks the kind of tangibility that make them feel lived-in and believable, with the closer framed shots never feeling as impressive as those framed with a wide angle, and the latter, while not as constricting to the overall integrity of the fight sequences of the previous film, still maintains an intrusively distracting appeal to sequences demanding of firm attention, with animated body doubles that bounce clunkily off of walls, with the kind of rubbery contact that unintentionally elicited laughter. While I wholeheartedly understand that it’s impossible to illustrate the magnitude of these powers without artificial effects, I still feel like those involved could ratchet a stronger suspension of disbelief to the interpretation, especially when the camera work isn’t cunningly clever enough to obscure these detractions without noticing

OVERALL
Mortal Kombat 2 delivers devilishly on the entertaining expectations of its hardcore gamers, with its distinct brand of martial arts action and bloody brutality, the likes of which are doubled down in this bigger and bolder superior sequel. While the storytelling components still detract significantly from the film’s engrossing appeal, with a barebones outline and razor thin characterization, the film still serves as an unapologetically cheesy splatterfest spectacle that was everything it was advertised as, in turn cementing another ambitious step forward for the optimistic future of gaming properties taking the cinematic route

My Grade: 7.0 or B-