Director – Simon McQuoid – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 116m
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Dragged into an otherworldly tournament a washed up 1990s action star must fight other contestants to the death to save the Earthrealm – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 8th
King Jerrod (Desmond Chiam from Joy Ride, Adele Lim, 2023) of Edenia loses the tenth fight in a to-the-death tournament to intergalactic despot Shao Khan (Martyn Ford from Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Matthew Vaughn, 2017), who thus takes over as ruler of Edenia, despatching Queen Sindel (Ana Thu Nyguen) when she attacks him and adopting the child Princess Kitana (Sophia Xu) as his own daughter. By the time Kitana (Adeline Rudolph from Hellboy: The Crooked Man, Brian Taylor, 2023) has reached womanhood, she has mastered such combat skills as her two deadly-bladed fans, under her personal combat trainer Jade (Tati Gabrielle), who is also her trusted ally and friend.
Meanwhile on our own planet, following a clip from one of his better movies – a brilliantly choreographed parody of 1990s action movies – washed up action movie star Johnny Cage (Karl Urban from Star Trek, J.J. Abrams, 2009; The Lord of the Rings; The Two Towers, Peter Jackson, 2002; Xena: Warrior Princess, TV series, 1996-2001) is approached by Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano from Shogun, TV series, 2025; Journey to the Shore, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2015; Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl, Katsuhito Ishii, 1998)
and Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee from The Meg, Jon Turtletaub, 2018; Battle of the Sexes, 2017; Home and Away, TV series, 2007) who appear a little like Schwarzenegger in The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984) via lightning bolts in a car park following Johnny’s attendance at a fan convention to ask him to join them as champions against Shao Khan in the upcoming tournament to decide the ruler of Earthrealm and the fate of all mankind. No pressure then. He returns with them to their world via a portal presaged by further lightning bolts, only to walk away when he learns fights are to the death.
Champions are summoned to the tournament by virtue of their silhouette outlines suddenly glowing a particular colour as if in a British 1970s Ready Brek commercial, and Johnny’s drinking in a bar and his earlier refusal to participate does not stop this happening to him as well as to other champions. From here, the film becomes a series of outrageous fighters in enjoyable fighting set-pieces held together with enough plot to make the whole thing make sense, but not enough character development to raise the movie above average.
A number of the characters here previously appeared in Mortal Kombat (Simon McQuoid, 2021), which had as its protagonist the Bruce Lee-inspired Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), although Johnny Cage, Kitana and Jade, familiar to players of the video game, appear on the big screen for the first time in the current franchise. Those three characters prove pivotal to the current film’s narrative.
Other recurring characters include Jax (Mehcad Brooks), who has two metal arms, Kano (Josh Lawson) who has a cybernetic laser beam eye, bladed hat wearer Kung Lao (Max Huang), sorcerers Quan Chi (Damon Herriman from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino, 2019; Judy and Punch, Mirrah Foulkes, 2019; The Nightingale, Jennifer Kent, 2018; 100 Bloody Acres, Cameron and Colin Cairnes, 2012) and Shang Tsung (Chin Han from Ghost in the Shell, Rupert Sanders, 2017; Captain America; The Winter Soldier, Anthony and Joe Russo, 2014; The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan, 2008), undead ninja Hanzo / Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada from John Wick; Chapter 4, Chad Stahelski, 2023; The Wolverine, James Mangold, 2013; Ring, Hideo Nakata, 1998; Royal Warriors, David Chung, 1986), and the latter’s descendant Cole Young (Lewis Tan).
The character of Johnny Cage cleverly riffs off the aesthetic of 1990s US action movies, where the action generally wasn’t on a par with those from Hong Kong (a state of affairs which changed with The Matrix, Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1999), so you have stunts which are knowingly not as good as they might be. This is like asking actors to act ‘badly’, which is a difficult feat to pull off and end up with a decent film, but impressive when filmmakers do pull it off. Here, they pull the trick off.
The clever script, as least as far as this character goes, allows Urban’s Cage to move from being a washed up actor out of his depth to a fighter who realises that he possesses a superpower; acting and image. Alas, his character is the only one allowed to inject a much needed dose of humour into the proceedings; everyone else is generally po-faced and taking the whole thing very seriously, when it so obviously lacks any gravitas. A more complex screenplay could have done a lot more with Kitana and Jade, two of the more rounded characters here, while the rest of the cast as written are little more than ciphers.
Head villain Shao Khan has a massive hammer and delights not, as you might imagine, crushing his enemies heads with it so much as in using its pointed handle to penetrate various parts of their anatomy. He has a necromancer in his court who raises various characters from the dead to remodel them as his tournament champions.
His champions include Kung Lao whose bladed hat who reminded me of the (more compelling) Bond villain Oddjob in Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton, 1964), whose hat is pressed into service as a spinning blade likely to cause a (deliberate) accident in the manner of an unregulated sawmill. Another character splits into two fighters.
An unlikely ally for our heroes is found in Baraka (CJ Bloomfield from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, George Miller, 2024), leader of the Tarkatan species who work as servants for Shao Khan and consequently have access to a tunnel underneath his castle. His species is recognisable from his massive mouth with spines for teeth, and he and his desert encampment look like they’ve wandered in from a Mad Max movie (which, given his prior filmography, and the look of the location used, he has). If Mortal Kombat II never quite reaches the heights of even a minor Mad Max movie, it’s also considerably better than such dire Australian SF fare as Occupation: Rainfall (Luke Sparke, 2020).
However, remembering that Warner Bros. produced The Matrix and that film’s action director recently made the extraordinary Blades of the Guardians (Yuen Woo-Ping, 2026), Mortal Kombat II’s distinctly average popcorn movie could have been considerably better. That said, turn off your mind and it can still provide a passable evening’s entertainment.
Mortal Kombat II is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, May 18th.
Trailer:
Trailer 2: