Mortal Kombat II (2026)

 

Mortal Kombat II (2026)

 

6/10

Starring

Karl Urban

Adeline Rudolph

Jessica McNamee

Josh Lawson

Ludi Lin

 

Directed by: Simon McQuoid

 

Mortal Kombat II is actually fun to watch, but the issue I had with it, and I think many will, is that it seems the show wanted to focus on big-time actor Karl Urban, with the hope of drawing more people to come see it.

I liked the effects, and right from the start the show is packed with a lot of fights, which keeps going fight after fight, making it easy to enjoy the film because, if not for the action, the bad dialogue and cheesy lines would have made this a disaster.

Now special effects wise and acting wise, I actually was impressed by the cocky Johnny Cage, played by Karl Urban. It was not too flimsy or too serious, it was played with the right touch of both to make you like the character, even if the events around him were not pleasing.

Mortal Kombat 2 follows from part 1, but the good thing is I went to watch it with someone who has not seen part 1 and knows nothing about the whole thing, yet was still able to keep up because part 2 is very good in that aspect of the writing. It fills you in on things, except the Scorpion and Sub-Zero biff, so Earthrealm’s fighters are ready to defend their realm.

This time the real Mortal Kombat is taking place, not just the path to it, which I also liked.

So Earthrealm fighters go one on one with their Outworld counterparts, and there are five fights, with the group that has more fighters standing winning.

But Earthrealm is short one fighter, so Johnny Cage, a washed-up actor, is brought into the team while Liu Kang, Sonya, Jax, and Cole train for a brutal conflict that could decide the fate of Earth.

Now the many directions this show could have taken that would have made this a masterpiece were ignored, instead the show created and forced many situations just to make Johnny Cage, Karl Urban, the star. They wanted to make him the focus, and when in the end they needed to destroy the amulet that held Raiden’s power, it had to be his shadow kick that did it, not the blast from Jade, the laser from Kano, or the fire from Scorpion.

I felt that was bad writing on display, and the way the show handled Kung Lao cutting Raiden, then trapping his powers, was just filled with holes.

How come Raiden did not heal instantly, but Shao Kahn does when he had the amulet? How come Raiden then healed instantly when he was about to be attacked by Shang Tsung?

Look, this is a fine film, which I enjoyed watching in the cinema, but I will advise you to go see this with your brain switched off, or else you are going to hate this movie and wish the writers made a better effort.