What a smorgasbord of mediocrity...
dir: Simon McQuoid
2026
Terrible, just terrible. But enough about my weekend.
Mortal Kombat II manages to build on the “success” of the first of the reboots that came out during the awful covid era, and actually has some kind of tournament, the result of which is meant to dictate who rules this world or that world, so us humans are meant to have a stake in what happens. It’s no credible way to establish a civil or economically stable society, but compared to the current messes going on, it couldn’t possibly be worse.
It is utterly silly foolishness, but I’ve played most if not all of the games, up until Mortal Kombat 11, and then the one that came out immediately after that, mysteriously titled Mortal Kombat 1. Mathematics and pulling people’s spines out through their mouths do not mix.
Earth needs a new hero to defend it from, um, supernatural people, so naturally the ‘Elder Gods’ decide a washed up action movie actor called Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) should do it.
Karl Urban is not a washed up anything, probably having the time of his life and starring in all sorts of series and franchises, but he can perfectly easily play an arrogant jerk who also keeps whining about not having any powers like the people he is confronted with / by.
Complicating things further, very arbitrarily, a necromancer called, uh, Quan Chi? resurrects whoever the makers want to be alive at any given time, including a guy who I was so glad died in the first flick, being Kano (Josh Lawson). Even as I thought we were safe from his ozzie ozzie ozzie oi oi oi type of being painfully Australian, he’s back swearing even more than ever! It is a remarkable bit of casting. Lawson has proven to be the most annoying character in at least 6 films I’ve watched, and that’s no mean achievement.
He goes for absolute gold here, though he in no way makes Australia proud.
If I were to describe the actual plot of the film, I would probably sound like a crazy person, or slightly crazier than usual, so perhaps we’d all benefit from me not doing so. What I will say is that reviewers talking about this film without knowing anything about any of the games or the absurd universe in which all this nonsense transpires, being one where there’s Outworld, the Netherrealm, and Earthrealm, and who the various villains and heroes are meant to be, are criticising the movie just for being trueish to the games: of course it’s all nonsense, but the nonsense sells a familiar story.
They, the people behind all of this, also for some reason assume audiences know all of this nonsense as well. They know that Scorpion really hates Sub-Zero, they know that Johnny Cage punches people in their crotches, that Kitana and Jade secretly love each other, that Shang Tsung is a sneaky little bitch, and Queen Sindel has long hair and screams like a banshee.
Also, that Liu Kang and Kung Lao are dear friends, now mortal enemies, though who has any idea why. Some people are resurrected and are deeply altered, others come back fine. Other people die, and just randomly say “I’ll be back in the next instalment”, and others die and people cry but then just shrug their shoulders like “there’s no way to beat death” even as they beat death all the time whenever the plot requires it. It’s hard to argue when it’s based on a game where people can die horrific deaths but come back unscathed in the next round.
Five champions of Earthrealm and five champions of Outworld are meant to fight, and whichever team ultimately wins gets to control, uh, everything. Even though none of these characters think they’re characters in a game, they accept all sorts of nonsense being ‘real’, like when there’s score being kept in the sky as to who’s winning and who’s losing. Who do they think is keeping score in the sky? Oh wait, it must be the Elder Gods, keeping track just like that local weirdos at kids’ district footy keeping score manually on a score board with those numbered plates.
Handing out slices of orange, even though no-one asked for them.
The gods clearly have nothing better to do otherwise. I guess it’s hard to find things to do in retirement, keeping busy with pointless busywork, hanging out in the food courts at malls. No-one ever gets to question the Elder Gods, and ask them why they came up with such a stupid system to allocate who controls billions of lives, human and otherwise.
They should have made it knucklebone jacks, or pick-up sticks. I guess it wouldn’t be as visually stimulating, though. Not as many gory deaths.
The fights, well, they’re not that great, but they’re occasionally okay. Johnny Cage comically does Hollywood ‘acting’ fighting a lot of the time, which is, something. He also comically gets to simulate that bit at the end of a fight in a game when the game screams “Finish Him!” and the player is furiously waggling controller sticks or pressing buttons in order to trigger a Fatality, a Brutality or a Friendship, but stuffs it up and nothing happens, so they collapse, relieved.
Liu Kang, if he possesses a personality, it wasn’t one detectable by myself, but he and Kung Lao probably have one of the better fight scenes in the flick. It would be unfair to call Kung Lao a one trick pony, but he does have a razor sharp hat, and he routinely tries to kill his former friend with it.
He also slashed the throat of Lord Raiden, thankfully again not played by Christopher Lambert or James Remar, but by Japanese legend Tadanobu Asano, who spends most of the flick floating a few feet off the ground, not doing much whispering his dialogue.
Kitana plays, um Gamora in this flick, if you accept that Shao Khan is her ‘adoptive’ dad Thanos, so inevitably she wants to avoid Gamora One’s fate from Infinity War, in order to live, breath and rule like Gamora Two from Endgame. If she has much of a personality, I think it ended up on the floor of the editing suite, not that they still use celluloid for movies anymore.
She has a “bodyguard” called Jade, and look don’t get me wrong they are a cute couple, but she has more personality than Kitana, and therefore is relegated to the status of a servant. She does have a cool green staff probably made of, um, some green gemstone, and I laughed when someone said “wow, what’s that thing made of?”, and I thought, man, these are not complicated games.
Each character does what they do, and they mostly do it well. Shao Khan is a boring one-note villain devoid of anything interesting, other than that he’s unkillable for most of the flick and then very killable at the end, which is appropriate. But since we know no-one dies forever in these flicks if they don’t want them to, I have no doubt he will turn up in further sequels. They should bring four-armed Goro back! What’s he up to these days? He must be hurting for work. Someone, please, give him a call.
Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) is a bit of a legend in these games, not so much in these movies, but she gets a few cool fights using her, um, I dunno, military powers? She doesn’t get to bomb large numbers of civilians or schools but she’s there as the noble embodiment of American military might. I have no idea if they’re going to go down the path of having her and Johnny make babies together, but they could certainly do worse. No, wait, they really couldn’t.
Her persistent hatred of Kano is a joy to behold and hear, and her determination to murder him again in a future film is a prime motivator and reason why more of these movies should, nay, must be made.
But. They shouldn’t be made with hundreds of millions of earth dollars. They should be made far cheaper. The slickness and the CGI detracts from what these nasty little films should be about: ripping people’s heads off or cutting them in half. Of course you need special effects to make that happen (without, you know, doing it for real), but I would far rather watch two competent fighters fight in a well-choreographed fight with hand painted backgrounds and Styrofoam than any number of ninjas fight any number of digital creations in an insubstantial ether.
Also, no problem with making Karl Urban / Johnny the lead again in future flicks. He has more personality than almost all of the other characters combined, delivering mostly dog shit dialogue with absolute aplomb, and will be glorious if he gets to lean in to his cocky asshole persona.
Though there isn’t enough room for two arrogant arseholes saying arrogant arsehole stuff in such a movie: so kill off Kano quick smart in the next one, thanks.
7 times they should adopt the storyline from MK10 in the next one, so that there’s two Johnny Cages for the price of one out of 10
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“ No. They want gritty, they want grounded, they want Keanu Reeves murdering a thousand fucking dudes with a pencil. That's what people want. That's what people want to see. Not some dinosaur doing a bunch of karate poses. Shit went out in the 90's.” – you’d think so, but maybe they want both? - Mortal Kombat II
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