“Strength is not a closed fist.”
Mortal Kombat II is a dumb, fun, fatality-filled rumpus. It is a very smart, very silly movie. MKII fixes the biggest flaw that its predecessor, 2021’s Mortal Kombat, was saddled with by centering the film around Johnny Cage and Kitana, two characters who are actual mainstays from the classic video games, instead of an unknown character created specifically for the earlier film. However, there is a good sense of continuity connected with the previous 2021 feature, with the actors playing Cole Young, Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, Jax, Shang Tsung, Bi Han/ Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Kano, and Kung Lao, along with Raiden, all reprising their roles.
The story is based on the adventures of the characters in the long-running, ultra-gory video game franchise created by Ed Boone and John Tobias and produced by Midway Games in 1992. The hyperbolic hysteria surrounding the game’s squicky, visceral fatalities was partially responsible for the creation of the ESRB, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board.
The movie is an action-packed, mostly accurate simulation of playing through one of the Mortal Kombat games. This film is a funny, loud, violent, splatter-packed, three-sided, self-referential pyramid where one side is based on the game lore, one side is based on pointing out what pop-culture or mythological references the game lore is based on, and one side is based on making jokes about how the game lore built on those references has influenced modern media.
“Are you going to run and hide?”
“First I’m going to drink all the beer in the world. Then I’m going to run and hide.”
Mortal Kombat II is a 2026 New Line Cinema film directed by Simon McQuoid from a story by Jeremy Slater. Karl Urban leads a sprawling, ensemble cast including Tadanobu Asano, Hiroyuki Sanada, Mehcad Brooks, Josh Lawson, Adeline Rudolph, Tati Gabrielle, Chin Han, Joe Taslim, Max Huang, Lewis Tang, Jessica McNamee, CJ Bloomfield, Ana Thu Nguyen, and Martyn Ford.
“He shoots fire? I feel like that’s cheating.”
Before King Jerrod must do battle with Shao Kahn, he gives his daughter an enchanted amulet allowing her to contact the Thunder Lord of Earthrealm, Raiden (Asano). Princess Kitana(Rudolph) then watches her father get slaughtered in Mortal Kombat by the monstrous Shao Kahn (Ford). Due to his failure, Edina, the realm under Jerrod’s command, is annexed by Otherworld for purposes of Lebensraum, and the beast, Kahn, sees fit to adopt Kitana as his new “daughter”, impressing her into his Royal Guard along with her bodyguard, Jade (Gabrielle).
On Earthrealm, Raiden and Sonya Blade (McNamee) try to recruit Johnny Cage (Urban), a washed-up, kung-fu fighting, nineties-era relic of New Line and Carolco-type action films who sits alone at comic conventions, forgotten by the modern fanbase and unable to move merch. They need him for Mortal Kombat. They explain the rules of the tournament. Unfortunately, he doesn’t believe them. Not for a second. Not even after he is teleported by lightning bolts from the convention’s parking lot to Raiden’s mountaintop Sky Temple, the place where champions of the Earthrealm practice for the ensuing battle that will decide the destiny of the world.
He’s a cynical fuck and wants nothing to do with his fate, the fight, or the future of the Earth. Ignoring the pleas of other fighters like Jax (Mehcad), Liu Kang (Lin), or even the god Raiden himself, he resolves to return to his favorite bar for the end of the world and spend his final moments wasted. Raiden warns him there is nowhere he can go to escape the gods or his destiny, but Cage, who is pretty sure he’s never seen a god in a tavern, has his doubts.
However, a day into his dissipation, in front of his favorite bartender, before he gets to down his last drink, he is summoned by the gods and teleported to fight Kitana in the first round of Mortal Kombat.
Will Kitana remain true to herself, her past, and her heart? Will Johnny Cage get over himself and remember what made him the motherfucking idol of millions? Will Liu Kang remember his mission and recover Kung Lao’s lost soul? Can Hanzo the Scorpion get his final revenge on Sub-Zero, the murderous minion who killed his family? Please see Mortal Kombat II to find out.
“You should’ve brought more guys.”
Karl Urban is a modern media film champion. Genre fans have seen him so often, he flops into outlandish roles comfortably like wrinkly, worn leather. He is in the MCU playing the Asgardian, Skurge the Executioner. He is in the Tolkien films as Eomer of Rohan. He played a Mega-City Judge in 2012’s Dredd. In the 23rd Century, he is the Starfleet Doctor, Bones McCoy. He portrays the God of Love, Cupid, and the Roman general, Caesar, in Xena Warrior Princess. He is Grimm the Reaper from the 2005 Doom adaptation, Vaako the Necromonger from the Chronicles of Riddick, Bill the Butcher from The Boys, and now Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat.
Many settings and interactions reminded this reviewer of the Paul Anderson Mortal Kombat movie from ’95. Sets and environments are designed with an aesthetic that evokes the game stages. The movement vocabulary and fight choreography mirror what the player inputs allow. Camera angles are copying a player’s game perspective, and as the brawls continue and build, the fighters mimic catchphrases, classic attacks, and the formidable finishing moves from the games that scared the United States Congress into action. Other than the repeated resurrections, which lower the stakes significantly, one of the few weaknesses of the film is that it’s a little ashamed of the source material. Even though it’s leaning in hard with the visuals and plot, the dialogue is REPLETE with pop culture references taking the piss out of the film, starting with a Big Trouble in Little China Easter egg that hearkens back to Raiden’s inspirations, but going all over the map relentlessly, culminating with references to Pennywise and Voldemort’s nutsack.
It feels like the writers are hammering a repeated echo of the joke from the 2000 Fox X-Men film about leather garb vs yellow spandex, comics-accurate outfits but instead of one self-loathing spike, it suffuses the feature with repeated personal attacks in the patter and pace of Spider-Man’s verbal blather.
The thing is, the jokes are funny, so it KIND of works, but you can see how the filmmakers don’t trust their own scaffolding that they’ve built, so they’re papering over things with self-depreciating comedy (as well as dating the film with jokes that probably won’t land in ten or even five years). That being said, the New Line Cinema, Jean Claude Van Damme satire can be seen from orbit and lands hard.
One neat thing about Mortal Kombat II is that it’s the first time that Tadanobu Asano and Hiroyuki Sanada have worked together since Hulu/FX’s Shōgun (2024), where Sanada played Lord Yoshii Toranaga, and Asano played Kashigi Yabushige.
This movie possesses and provides a great use of Chekhov’s gun with a special blue sash. Notably, the staging, set-up, combat use, climax, and bad-ass choke-out with the sash that sits in the camera’s eye for the full length of the movie before it provides the audience with the proper payoff is exquisitely handled.
Mortal Kombat II is a hoot. This film’s secret weapon is Josh Lawson’s Kano, who is a joke-a-breath character, filling every beat he’s in with crack-up comedy, injecting zest and zingers into the film along with a fuckton of F-words. It’s a proper, put-your-brain-in-a-jar, Summer, blood-splatter, action film. It’s chock full of sooo much video game goodness but also a jar full of shlock and cheese (along w/ blood and guts). Chomp on the popcorn, don’t think too hard about the plot, and watch the skulls pop for your pleasure. As they say in the movie, Mortal Kombat II is a “Flawless Victory” for fans of the genre.
Mortal Kombat II opens in theatres on 05/08/2026.
Newsdesk