Karl Urban is back in a video game adaptation and it’s certainly better than his last outing 20 years ago. Although, 2005’s “Doom” isn’t exactly a high bar.
Regardless, in this sequel to the 2021 “MK” film, Urban stars as Johnny Cage, a former martial artist turned action movie hero whose Hollywood career has declined. Now just attending fan conventions for money, he’s somewhat directionless in life. That is until he’s recruited to represent the realm of Earth in a tournament.
That tournament is one that will determine whether the empire of Outworld, ruled by the warlord Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford), can conquer Earth. However, while the emperor’s forces are powerful, there is a dissenter in his daughter Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), whose own world was conquered by Outworld after her realm lost a similar tournament.
Let’s be upfront about this. The main draw of a movie based on “Mortal Kombat” are the fights, which should include bloodshed. This flick, throughout its nearly 2 hour runtime, delivers on that fairly regularly. Hand-to-hand combat takes place and weapons are wielded in vicious fashion.
Are all of those fights good? Well, some are better than others. A couple highlights include one featuring Cage in a desert-like area, while another involves fellow Earth Champion Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) battling a character brought back from the first. At the same time, there are a few that miss the mark, such as a duel between characters Sonya and Sindel.
For the most part, though, there’s proper entertainment value. But everything outside of the kombat is often more miss than hit. To be fair, the film is stronger in its narrative department than its predecessor. The creators wisely moved on from the awful Cole character (Lewis Tan), in favor of heroes who are actually in the games.
Johnny Cage is a solid choice to be the fish out of water here. Even though some of it’s repetitive as he, like Cole, has to learn the ropes of what MK is all about, it’s fairly engaging seeing him be the everyman who can still contribute in times of crisis. Urban is also fine in the role, doing solid work portraying an aging actor who’s lost his passion.
Another positive is in what has to be considered the real protagonist of the movie, Kitana. Her backstory has always been a strong one in the “MK” lore and that’s true here. We’re introduced to her when she’s a child, we understand her motivation and drive, and an audience can root for her good-hearted nature and bravery.
Those characters, and others, though, are not served well by what’s built around them. Simon McQuoid, who helmed the first one and has had no other projects, returns to the director’s chair. Jeremy Slater, meanwhile, who penned the script, has previously worked on the likes of 2015’s “Fantastic, Four,” 2017’s “Death Note” and 2024’s “Godzilla x Kong: Empire.”
Neither has a particularly great track record in their departments, and it shows. Most telling is many of the scenes in this movie are incredibly short, resulting in the story and the characters barely having any time to breathe. It’s hard to feel anything because the film is so fast in moving on to the next thing with little resonating.
There’s not much to fully connect with in these scenes, either, as the dialogue in many parts is rather poor. A few of the comedic lines work because of the commitment from the performers to the bit, but everything else lacks emotion and richness. It’s not a great sign when the cutscenes from the last video game, 2023’s “Mortal Kombat 1,” had better moments of interaction and character growth than this film.
Plus, the movie is rather awful at creating any form of relationships. Johnny Cage joins this team of defenders but it rarely feels like a real team. Liu Kang and Kitana are well known to be romantically involved in the games but here they might as well be coworkers who see each other once a year at a Christmas party. At times, the film also seems to be kinda pushing something between Sonya and Cage, another popular couple, but a viewer has to squint for that.
Another issue with the creative team is they don’t exactly stick to their own internal consistency. In the first movie, one was selected as a champion either through blood, which Cole was, or killing another warrior who had a specific marking. Here, Johnny Cage is just chosen, seemingly at random.
This matter extends to the format of the tournament itself, too. In the beginning, the audience is informed that there are five fighters to represent each realm, and they will fight until one side has lost all of its warriors. However, these rules seem to be abandoned in the second half of the movie. Entire characters are also abandoned, too. There’s a rather important figure who isn’t present in the final scene when they probably should have been.
Now, one could argue that the film can at least be forgiven by those who are fans of the games. I mean, they’re the real target, right? Well, as a fan of the games, it’s not a 100 percent yes. While the picture, as previously mentioned, did have some good fights reminiscent of “MK games,” especially involving Kitana’s fans, and Kahn being properly a menace with his hammer, there were things that were wrong as a fan, too.
On top of the aforementioned lack of notable relationships, the amount of screentime and treatment of some characters really feels off. It’s especially true with Liu Kang, who’s long been the game series’ protagonist, yet is nearly abandoned in this one with little to no personality. Another detriment comes from the last movie, which mishandled the character Mileena, who has major ties to Kitana. This is a film series that still doesn’t really know what personality to settle on with the Thunder God Raiden, either.
The “Mortal Kombat” sequel is, overall, an improvement over the first film, and certainly better than the other film sequel from the 1990s, “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.” Cage and Kitana make for fine protagonists; there are some solid martial art sequences and enough blood spilled for excitement. Still, there’s a lot working against the movie in its script, character-work, pacing and consistency. 2.5 out of 5.
