Mortal Kombat 2 review: "Lands some killer blows, but far from a flawless victory"

If you left 2021’s Mortal Kombat wondering where on Earthrealm the tournament was, Mortal Kombat 2 is here to answer that very question. Less sequel, more creative overhaul for the famously bloody fighting franchise on screen, MK2 enthusiastically embraces its video game heritage by making the tournament the main event and tonally resetting the series around Karl Urban’s wisecracking Johnny Cage. But in the golden age of video game adaptations, MK2 is more mid-card fighter than undisputed champ.

Opening with a disarmingly emotional prologue set decades before the events of the first film, we meet Kitana (initially played by Sophia Xu), who can only watch, helpless, as her father, King Jerrod, is slain by the monstrous Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford), Emperor of Outworld. Two decades later, all that stands between Shao Kahn and dominion over Earthrealm are Lord Raiden’s champions, victory in one last tournament, and Kahn’s adopted daughter, Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), who harbors a lifelong thirst for vengeance.

For the most part, Raiden’s returning fighters will be familiar. Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Jax (Mehcad Brooks) and Cole Young (Lewis Tan) all return. As do the supposedly dead likes of Kung Lao (Max Huang) and motor-mouth Kano (Josh Lawson), thanks to the presence of necromancer Quan Chi (Damon Herriman). Fighting for Outworld are Kitana’s bodyguard, Jade (Tati Gabrielle), her reanimated mother, Sindel (Ana Thu Nguyen), and demoted big bad Shang Tsung (Chin Han). But Kahn is a one-man army, and Raiden needs fresh blood if he hopes to win.

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Enter Johnny Cage. A past-his-prime action star who was big in the '80s, Cage, inexplicably, has been identified by the Elder Gods as Earth’s last hope and is reluctantly recruited to fight for Team Earthrealm. In the games and on-screen, Cage as a fighter is closely modelled on Jean Claude Van Damme (yes, the split-legged 'nut punch' features). Urban’s Cage, however, has undergone a Deadpool personality transplant, with the character riffing on everything from Squid Game and Harry Potter to Big Trouble in Little China and The Lord of the Rings.

Cage’s mere presence makes Mortal Kombat 2 significantly more fun, moment to moment, than its strangely self-serious predecessor. But the film hits the acceptable limit for pop-culture references in the first act… and never lets up. The general air of irreverence is also at odds with Kitana’s story, which adds human stakes to a story about magical fighters eviscerating one another for the nebulous goal of inter-dimensional domination.

Unless you’re a story mode sicko, however, chances are all you need and want out of a Mortal Kombat movie is bone-breaking fights, and these come thick and fast. The undisputed highlight is the much-hyped Blue Portal fight, which sees Liu Kang and the revenant Kung Lao go toe-to-toe, with Kung Lao’s ability to teleport via his razor-rimmed hat used to striking effect. It almost comes too early in the film, however, as nothing else quite reaches those heights again. Even a rematch between Hiroyuki Sanada’s Scorpion and Joe Taslim’s Bi-Han, who has been reborn as Noob Saibot in the Netherrealm, fails to top the Sub-Zero face-off in the first film.

To its credit, though, Mortal Kombat 2 is impressively ruthless. Major characters are subject to wincingly violent fatalities on an alarmingly regular basis. If you know the lore, screenwriter Jeremy Slater executes one or two effective narrative rug pulls. And, of course, it's packed with Easter eggs, including stages, moves, catchphrases and more that will be instantly familiar to die-hards, and at least some fairweather fans.

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With an ensemble cast of more than a dozen main characters, inevitably, many get short shrift. Chief among them is Cole Young, the first film’s divisive, movie-only point of view character, who’s relegated to something of a background supporting role. It’s evidence that, despite character continuity, the creative team behind Mortal Kombat 2 wasn’t afraid to make major changes for the better. Similarly, Shang Tsung is strangely sidelined in favor of Shao Kahn after leading Outworld’s forces in the first film.

It’s movie newcomers Kitana and Johnny Cage that benefit the most in this creative shake-up. Kitana in particular is the story’s heart (one of the few that doesn’t get ripped from a chest, still beating, in fact), with Rudolph adept at both acrobatic action and Game of Thrones-style palace subterfuge. Urban’s larger-than-life Johnny Cage doesn’t have much of a character arc by comparison, and his stunt-double is visibly overused in the fights, but the character does run away with almost every scene he’s in… when Cage isn’t opposite ultimate scene-stealer Kano, anyway. It’s a smart tonal rebalance that puts the series in a good place heading into the (heavily foreshadowed) third film.

Where there is to go next remains to be seen, as Mortal Kombat 2 delivers on pretty much everything you could reasonably expect from a Mortal Kombat movie, for better and worse. In the golden age of video game adaptations, MK2 is nothing special, ultimately. And the peculiar overreliance on pop culture references means it already feels a bit outdated. But as far as Friday-night fodder goes, it hits the mark.

Mortal Kombat 2 releases in theaters on May 8. For more, check out our list of upcoming video game movies or our full list of upcoming movie releases.