I made it a point to go see Mortal Kombat II because I’d also made it a point to go see the first Mortal Kombat, and I remembered enjoying it. I remember a dude getting up and out of his seat to cheer for the hat guy. I wanted that back.
Kombat Fatigue
I did not get that back. As a disclaimer, this zinger is not meant to disparage the film, only the audience. The movie was fine.
The first film indulged in the ‘fun’ factor. The plot was flimsy and the pacing was frustrating and the villains were cartoonish, but everyone had a lil bit of fun with it. The second film decided that they needed to really get to the ‘Mortal Kombat tournament’ part of the ‘Mortal Kombat movie’, and I think that was a mistake.
I recall Kano being fucking stellar, and in this movie was a little too muted for my tastes. The Cage character played by Karl Urban had a ton of potential, but I think the filmmakers (and perhaps Urban himself) wanted to distance the Cage character from the very recent Billy Butcher persona. As a result, instead of having two witty potty mouths, we had half, and then a little scared man who gets powerups when the plot needs it or the lady’s ADR encourages him.
There’s a lot of ADR in this film. There’s a really fun bit where they forgot to have Jax film a scene, so they added him in the shot, but hid the character’s face and metal CGI arms by having a dude hiding under a big poncho. Then they ADR’ed a little zinger to tell us who he was. One of my favorite ADR bits was when they transitioned the Kitana character from a child to an adult. She’s fighting a lady off to her left, but is looking right. The lady yells ‘Kitana!’, who whips to her left, and looks to continue a fight that was already in progress. Lovely.
Mortal Indulgence
So that’s the clumsiness of the film. The rest was great. The action was colorful and creative and over the top. Some of the environments were fantastic. I loved that they leaned into the ‘this was based on a 2-D combat video game!’ through the cinematography.
I also enjoyed the restraint they displayed with their female characters. The first one only had one, Sonya Blade, and she was cool, but that could have been a flash in the pan, y’know? But with Mortal Kombat II, we have two protagonists in Johnny Cage and Kitana, and Kitana is never sexualized nor turned into a damsel in distress. There were multiple women in this movie, and there was nary a boob or thigh to be seen. It was fantastic that they crafted their female characters to be so independent and capable, because that’s not what you’d expect from a movie like this. Hell, Kitana spends her time in a corset, (and I’m only bringing this up because it allows me to remember the scenes a lot), and it’s so sensible. It’s clearly armor that allows her full use of her arms, and that’s such a great design for an acrobatic female warrior. I’m not sure what the point here is, except ‘good job for not being as shitty as one would have expected from a movie like this!’
If you want a flashy, colorful movie with lots of fun fighting and lots of handy-wavy magic amulet nonsense and lots of moments to laugh at, this is a good movie for you. It exceeds stuff like the new Godzilla movies because those things were so self-indulgent and earnest. They tried to spend a lot of time with their characters and explaining the nuances of the plot and world (like why we missed massive monsters hiding in the world for so many years). That’s fine and dandy, but that’s a lot of effort and thinking that’s involved with justifying a monkey hitting a monkey with a smaller monkey.
I went in giggling, and I left giggling. I didn’t feel drained or frustrated. I was just happy that we got to see some fun stuff on screen. That’s what movies are all about, y’know?
I thought that Mortal Kombat II was
GOOD
I saw Mortal Kombat II in theaters, but I expect we’ll see it on HBO, because I went home and rewatched Mortal Kombat on the platform.
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