‘Mortal Kombat II’ sucks the life out of action movies

You’d be forgiven for not remembering its predecessor; Mortal Kombat II doesn’t want you to either. Its focus, for the most part, is a pair of video game mainstays who weren’t around last time, but who are established here through dueling prologues as the series’ new protagonists. A flashback sees the skull-masked Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford)—a villainous, dollar-store Bane—killing the parents of a young princess before adopting her and usurping her father’s throne in the dingy realm of Edenia. Years later, this maiden, Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), plots to overthrow him. Elsewhere, on Earth (aka Earthrealm), a washed up action star, Johnny Cage (Karl Urban), sits at a Comic Con table, waiting for fans who never show. Through its visual language, the film places these dueling heroes on a collision course of destiny, so it’s utterly baffling when they meet in the movie’s very first fight scene, after which they never really interact, and the movie switches focus to characters it introduces in its final act.

The plot, as it were, concerns the titular tournament—which was strangely absent from the last film—whose stakes involve Shao Kahn taking over the various realms, including Earth, should his team of fighters be successful. Also, there’s necromancy, and non-stop talk of an amulet with special powers that dovetails into its own subplot involving the heroes from the last film: elder god and exposition machine Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), robot-armed brawler Jax (Mehcad Brooks), fire-fisted cardboard cutout Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), secondary exposition machine Sonya (Jessica McNamee), and nondescript newcomer Cole (Lewis Tan). They’re introduced practically like extras in their own sequel, which would make for a hilarious zigzag if they didn’t gradually grow in importance.

Returning director Simon McQuoid shoots the fights with the pizzazz of a plank of wood, seldom emphasizing strength or movement. No film should be beholden to the visual language of its source material, but the horizontal axis of the video games allows you to experience the fights in full, while Mortal Kombat II seems more concerned with cutting around them to hide the seams. It might also have some of the worst sound design in any major Hollywood picture, with clunky noises (sometimes literally, thanks to Shao Kahn’s mallet) and off-kilter echoes where snaps, pops and gut-wrenching thumps should be. The environments for each fight are largely dull and interchangeable, and some action scenes suffer from the Wicked disease of being so backlit and washed out that you can barely see what’s happening.

As for the actual story, it somehow makes the fights look downright accomplished by comparison. Characters stand around explaining lore in stilted medium shots that seem to last an eternity—there’s so much awkward dead air you’d think it was edited by some A.I. software—and even when they finally get to a fun location (a realm resembling Hell), the scattershot assembly makes it hard to track who’s where, as they scramble to steal a powerful jewel. 

If the last film had one saving grace, it was foul-mouth Australian anti-hero Kano (Josh Lawson), who leveled-up and gained a laser eye by, uh, being racist to an Asian character (the less said about Warner Bros. trotting out its cast for a #StopAsianHate campaign, the better). Kano is the only person in this universe with charisma, so he’s resurrected for the sequel—as are several others—but thoroughly under utilized, despite having the movie’s only major laughs. Instead, they try to recreate him in the aggregate by having Urban do his worst Wolverine impression, as his Johnny Cage snarls and dresses down the film’s entire premise, while the other cast members struggle to imbue it with gravitas. Unfortunately, all of Cage’s quips feel mistimed, and he gets little comedic support from Jax, whose entire purpose appears to be making similar, snarky observations (“Well, that’s ominous!”) Although intended as jokes, these land with palpable thuds. But hey, something has to; the kicks and punches sure don’t.

Cage’s story is, on paper, one of self-actualization, or something along those lines. But while it has the right beginning and end points, there’s just nothing in between. The action is never an extension of his character (or anyone’s, for that matter), and the only thing remotely resembling an arc occurs when someone else observes that he’s “changed” (he hasn’t). It’s painful to watch Urban playing a movie star when his character lacks any hint of personality or allure.

Barring recent exceptions like Exit 8, video game movies have a reputation of being the bottom of the barrel, and it’s hard not to see why. Mortal Kombat II has only the faintest appearance of containing things that might be cinematically enjoyable; it technically has what you might call action scenes, and the actors are saddled with dialogue vaguely resembling banter. But it’s also filled to the brim with lines and images intended to be references of some kind, but are so haphazardly placed and delivered that you’d hope no self-respecting audience member would feel catered to. And yet, the film has the temerity to end by threatening a third installment, which will inevitably arrive if enough viewers give this one a pass for incidentally containing things they half recall from childhood.

It’s hard not to be cynical when a film like this one is released—in a form that feels barely complete, and like the studio behind it was smugly satisfied as it poured pig slop into a trough shaped like a novelty popcorn bucket. But ultimately, it may not be the fault of audiences at large when films like Mortal Kombat II fill up the multiplex. Studio mergers and theater closures keep ensuring that there’s less for the average person to watch, so when a somber reorchestration of the famously fun Mortal Kombat theme blares over busted cinema speakers, sucking all enjoyment out of the air, suddenly, Johnny Cage propping up his dark glasses with a middle finger feels like Warner Bros. flipping off the audience for being fooled into buying a ticket. It’s the ultimate fatality.