There’s something inherently funny about the fact that the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie spent nearly two full hours promising the arrival of the titular tournament…only to never actually feature it. The COVID-era reboot functioned less like a complete story and more like a glorified prologue, introducing a sprawling roster of fighters and mythologies while awkwardly hinging the entire experience on the disappointingly bland new original character Cole Young (Lewis Tan). It was a movie that felt like it was constantly insisting that cooler things were just around the corner. Five years later, Mortal Kombat II finally delivers on that promise, and while it still falls well short of being an objectively “good” movie, it’s undeniably a far more entertaining one.
Directed once again by Simon McQuoid, this time with a screenplay by fresh voice Jeremy Slater, the smartest decision this sequel makes arrives almost immediately: Cole is no longer the protagonist. In fact, the film practically sidelines him altogether, a move that feels both hilariously rude and absolutely correct. Instead, the story pivots toward Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) and Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), two characters with actual personalities, charisma, and emotional stakes. The result is a sequel that feels significantly more alive than its predecessor, even when the storytelling itself remains stilted and convoluted.
This time around, the tournament is finally underway, though naturally the villains spend much of the runtime cheating their way through it anyway. We open with Kitana’s tragic backstory, watching evil emperor Shao Kahn (an incredibly imposing Martyn Ford) slaughter her family before forcing her into servitude. Now grown, Kitana secretly trains alongside bodyguard and best friend Jade (Tati Gabrielle) for the Mortal Kombat tournament, while preparing for her inevitable rebellion against Outworld’s tyrannical ruler. It’s one of, if not the only emotionally grounded thread in the film, largely because the performance at its center actually carries some genuine weight. Several of the movie’s attempted emotional beats land with a thud, but Kitana’s arc mostly works because Rudolph (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Resident Evil) commits to it with sincerity even when the screenplay doesn’t fully support her.
Meanwhile, Johnny Cage is the audience surrogate this time around, introduced as a washed-up 90s action star stuck living off convention appearances and fading celebrity. It’s a clever angle for the character and gives the movie a much-needed sense of humor beyond Kano’s endless barrage of offensive one-liners. Kano (scene-stealer Josh Lawson), of course, returns via some wonderfully dumb necromancy nonsense because the filmmakers clearly realized what audiences already knew after the first movie: he’s way too entertaining to stay dead. The original film often felt like “The Kano Show” simply because everyone else around him was so lifeless by comparison. Thankfully, the supporting cast this time around finally catches up enough that his presence enhances the movie rather than completely overpowering it.
McQuoid and the stunt team also clearly took criticisms of the first film to heart. The fights are faster, more inspired, and staged with far more confidence. Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) especially emerges as the film’s MVP, stealing nearly every sequence he’s involved in through sheer physical presence and choreography. His showdown against a resurrected Kung Lao (Max Huang) is easily the standout fight in the entire movie, delivering the kind of exciting, propulsive martial arts spectacle audiences wanted from the franchise all along, with a solid emotional center to boot. There’s finally a sense of rhythm and escalation to these encounters rather than just isolated bursts of violence stitched together by exposition dumps, at least for the most part.
The battle against Johnny Cage and the multi-toothed Baraka (CJ Bloomfield) also stands out for feeling surprisingly tactile and cinematic. One of the recurring problems with both of these rebooted Mortal Kombat films is how artificial many of the environments feel, with characters constantly fighting in muddled digital voids that rarely resemble actual locations. This particular sequence, however, finally gives the movie a setting with texture and atmosphere in Baraka’s desert village, balancing humor, violence, and genuine character moments in a way the rest of the film struggles to maintain.
Unfortunately, Mortal Kombat II still can’t stop tripping over its own mythology. The further the movie moves into its third act, the more everything begins collapsing under the weight of convoluted lore and franchise obligations. Characters suddenly reappear with confusing motivations or abrupt emotional turns. Major deaths and sacrifices don’t really land because the film barely slows down long enough for them to matter, and we know that they’ll probably just come back anyway for the next movie. Returning fighters Jax (Mehcad Brooks) and Sonya (Jessica McNamee) especially get shortchanged, reduced to little more than background players and exposition devices while Johnny and Kitana dominate the narrative.
Most frustratingly, the movie eventually pivots back toward the Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada) and Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) rivalry, reintroducing their feud in a way that feels completely shoehorned into this larger, fresher story. Yes, those characters are iconic and audiences expect them. But the sequel already had stronger central arcs in motion, and suddenly redirecting focus toward another obligatory Scorpion versus Sub-Zero rematch ultimately undercuts the momentum the movie had finally built for itself, especially once you realize that it’s committing both a good chunk of time and a major action set piece towards it.
Still, despite all its flaws, Mortal Kombat II works far better as pure blockbuster junk food than the first movie ever did. It’s louder, faster, funnier, and considerably more confident about what audiences actually want from this franchise. No, it’s not a good movie. But it’s definitely an entertaining one. And honestly, for Mortal Kombat, that might be the bigger victory.
‘Mortal Kombat II’ is now playing in theaters.
