A rare Hollywood sequel that delivers on what the first film set up, Mortal Kombat II is packed with, well, combat of the mortal variety. It's a film where someone delivers a heart-rending monologue to a fallen adversary while the massive circular saw blade they were power-slammed onto is still spinning through their torso, spraying blood everywhere. So the real question is: why isn't this more awesome?
The first film ran right up to the edge of the promised tournament for the fate of "Earth Realm" then stopped. So we start with a bit of backstory here: after her father failed to defeat the evil Shao Khan (Martyn Ford), dooming her realm to his brutal leadership, Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) has become one of the tyrant's most potent weapons. Together with her bodyguard Jade (Tati Gabrielle), she's at the forefront of his latest battle - conquering Earth.
Meanwhile, for reasons best known to the gods, Earth's final champion has been chosen: washed up 90s action star Johnny Cage (Karl Urban). Despite the best efforts of Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) and the rest, he refuses the call. But the gods care not for his desires.
Both of these storylines are a solid basis for a film. Unfortunately, they're surrounded by lore, surplus characters, a story that probably has too much going on - Shao Khan is also after an amulet that will make him immortal, and therefore impossible to defeat in combat - and a bunch of characters coming back from the dead. Though as one of them is Kano (Josh Lawson), easily the comedy highlight of this and the previous film, the loss of dramatic stakes is probably worth it.
Returning director Simon McQuoid does a solid job with the fights, of which there are many, and the often insanely gory finishing moves are much appreciated. Urban does his best to milk the comedy from his blowhard character, though Cage works best when he's actually trying to do the right thing. Kitana is where the real drama lies; a tighter focus on the two leads might have annoyed the fans, but would have made for a stronger film.
There's one brief flashback to explain a side character's backstory, but if you don't have strong memories of the previous film you're largely on your own. It's not a big problem, even when towards the end a conflict that seemed pretty much concluded in the first film is dug up because the characters involved are cool and it's cool to have them fight again. Mortal Kombat II: cool fights are cool.
If only they could figure out a way to have the very first second of the film be someone yelling "Mortal Kombat!!!" like the 90s one did.
- Anthony Morris
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