Earthrealm needs saving and only a handful of warriors – and a washed-up actor – might possibly pull it off in Mortal Kombat II, the sequel to the 2021 movie adaptation of the popular video game.
The action thriller opens with little Kitana being forced to watch her father die a horrible death fighting the emperor of Outworld, Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford), an enormous warrior with almost God-like strength (think Darkside from the DC universe but with an animal skull mask). “You’re my daughter now,” growls Kahn as he takes over Kitana’s realm and people.
Leap ahead to the introduction of Johnny Cage (Karl Urban), a washed-up action movie star from the ‘90s who gets recruited by Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) and Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), the God of Thunder, to join in their fight. Cage just hopes to return to Earth and can’t wrap his head around the idea that they believe he’s a great warrior. Lord Raiden insists Cage’s going to be integral to deciding the fate of his world.
Reluctantly, Cage teams up with Blade, Raiden, Australian arms dealer/fighter Kano (Josh Lawson), and Kitana, who is spying on Kahn and reporting everything she learns to Lord Raiden in the hopes of stopping Kahn from winning the epic Mortal Kombat tournament.
Mortal Kombat II suffers from what most films adapted from a video game series suffer from—one-dimensional characters, poor acting, and a paper-thin plot that’s nothing more than an excuse for mindless action. It’s a loud and empty movie with terrible special effects, unimpressive fight sequences, and an uneven tone. When the film focuses on Shao Kahn and Kitana, its tone is dark and deadly serious, with simple, almost laughable dialogue. When it doesn’t, the tone’s all over the place.
The ridiculous and chaotic fight scenes fail to create any real suspense or tension and are over-the-top with gore. Although it’s a popcorn film, the gore may cause audiences to lose their appetite for snacks.
Mortal Kombat II is entertaining when it’s more tongue-in-cheek and focuses on Cage being way over his head during fights. A perfect example of this humor is a scene of Cage insulting and taunting a nomadic mutant warrior named Baraka (CJ Bloomfield), whose face and mouth are loaded with overly large animalistic teeth, into a fight with their champion so that if he loses, Baraka will help him and his comrades in their fight against Kahn. When Baraka agrees to fight but insists it must be against Cage, Blade and the other warriors immediately react with, “Oh no, Johnny Cage is going to die!”
Karl Urban’s performance as Johnny Cage is the best part of Mortal Kombat II, portraying the has-been actor as a well-meaning, once-talented martial arts fighter in films who has been thrown into this fight-to-the-death nightmare.
Josh Lawson delivers a fun performance, returning as the wise-cracking arms dealer Kano, who is not a fan of Shao Kahn and teams up with Cage to help his team win. Lawson captures Kano’s crass and vulgar personality and adds much-needed lightheartedness to the film. But even with entertaining performances by Urban and Lawson, Mortal Kombat II doesn’t pack enough fun to save it from the dreaded sequelitis.
GRADE: C-
Rating: R for strong bloody violence and gore, and language
Runtime: 1 hour 56 minutes
Release Date: May 8, 2026
Directed By: Simon McQuoid
Studio: New Line Cinema
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