You know, it’s weird to say this, but it always amazes me how light the Mortal Kombat movies are on the gore. Just look at any YouTube comp of the Fatalities (and all -lity suffixed derivatives) in one of the modern games — here’s one featuring Conan the Barbarian slaying his way through the Mortal Kombat One roster — and you’ll see a level of fucked-up creativity typically reserved for the Saw movies or a Timo Tijhanto thriller. This isn’t an animalistic cry for more “blood and guts,” as nice as it might be to see a properly-staged action sequence that culminates in a finisher so foul that one would hear a sonic boom come from underneath Joe Lieberman’s tombstone, but you’ve gotta wonder what exactly the point of it all is. If Simon McQuoid’s goal for Mortal Kombat II is to remind old WCW Monday Nitro fans how dope Mortal Kombat: Conquest was as a follow-up on TNT, he’s done a pretty decent job. If his goal is to make an action film that can compete with the current cream of the genre’s crop or, for that matter, replicate the cinematic qualities of the games, he falls short.
Yes, that’s correct: The über-seriousness with which McQuoid and writer Jeremy Slater hold the über-goofy Kombat Kanon is actually one of their film’s best assets. I know I’m supposed to huff and puff about silly shit like the Elder Gods setting up a trans-dimensional fighting competition to establish a framework for one universe to conquer another. Five champions each, no holds barred, no rounds, no scoring: the only choice is whether or not the victor spares or kills their opponent. It’s a good thing they set this up, as there’s a handy-dandy tyrant named Shao Khan (Martyn Ford) hopping timelines, and he’s coming for our universe next. Thankfully, lightning god Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) is on the case, and our five champions are: ex-military badass Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), the mechanically-armed Jax (Mehcad Brooks), the fiery Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), some dude named Cole Young (Lewis Tan), and the one-and-only Johnny Cage (Karl Urban). Raiden’s also got some help on the inside from Shao Khan’s step-daughter Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), who fights with bladed hand fans and is not Mileena, who has that crazy collapsible jaw (and wears purple instead of blue). She’s not in the picture. Boo.
What makes this work better than it should is how Ed Boon and the team at Neversoft stitched the patchy nature of fighting game aesthetics, full of hat tips, nods, and lifts to and from other forms of media, into a gloriously goofy world. Folks like to toss about the “directors playing with their action figures” cliche when talking about rock-em-sock-em narrative construction, but there may be no better equivalent to the process of kids making shit up as they go along in the backyard than what the MK movies give us. For whatever reason, I remain entertained by it — call it nostalgia for the days spent spinning improv adventure yarns in elementary school with the buds, but there’s a charm to a movie that just asks you to roll with a laser-eyed Australian named Kano (Josh Lawson) who swears like a fourth-grader coming back from the dead and suddenly switching sides because a world without air conditioning and threesomes isn’t one he particularly cares to be in. Add to that the most stilted writing and line delivery this side of the classic Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie era, and you have a self-styled serious adaptation that demands you laugh with it at the places it’ll go to, and occasionally wind up rocking along with it.
There’s no better example of that than how they integrate Cage into the story, as his absence was sorely missed from the first film, which centered around Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and snoring until the final fight. Urban, capitalizing on his reputation as a stellar on-screen grump in The Boys and notching off another spot in his goal to play a role in every nerd franchise*, proves himself to be a good fit for the part. I would have preferred a Glen Powell type, simply because a Johnny Cage not knucking and bucking and ready to fight doesn’t exactly vibe with my perception of the character, whose self-confidence is sort of the point. But as a Cage who is thoroughly washed-up and full of self-doubt, even though he’s been chosen by the Gods to kick ass, he’s swell, and makes the most of his ridiculous arc. The scene in which he faces down the many-toothed Baraka (CJ Bloomfield) — and rediscovers his ability to kick ass by directly imitating his shades-wearing persona from the movies — is quite fun, and you can see how much enjoyment Urban’s getting out of the role, nut-punching aliens, tossing out one-liners, and pushing up his Wayfarers with a tactically-deployed middle-finger.
If the fights were better, it’d be easier to recommend Mortal Kombat II as an action film with broader appeal than for goofballs like me who appreciate the finer points of MadLibs world-building. McQuoid still awkwardly times his cuts — the emphasis placed on certain moves feels more laborious than fluid — and the environments are almost totally CGI’d after a certain point. This is fine when Liu Kang squares off against a former friend in a netherworld-like space (and, to be fair, the sequence is a standout, with the choreography, setting, and timing coming close to what you’d find in the games), but less so in a small-scale encounter. It seems a lot of the budget went to making a functional and interesting Hell for part of the final conflict, as well as a semi-generic town square used for various brawls, but the scenes feel weightless when they’re not fully fantastical. There are two legitimately well-done fatalities, but then again, they’re never able to clear the high bar that Boon and company have established on smaller screens.
All in all, I’d say that Mortal Kombat II is a net improvement on the first film in the rebooted franchise, though I hope they live up to the wholeheartedly comic-book implications of the finale in whatever sequel. If I’m being real — and as a fan of the games, it pains me to say this — I can’t wait to see what Street Fighter looks like, where it looks like there’s more of an aesthetic acceptance of camp and less of a need to be serious-minded. These are ridiculous, goofy-as-shit worlds, and that’s part of the appeal. Street Fighter has colorful characters and style, and Mortal Kombat has more crimson splatters on the walls than the Harvard gift shop and more vivisections than you’d find in an anatomy textbook. McQuoid’s getting closer to the ideal, but he’s not quite there yet. Consider this a hopeful bit of corner advice, and here’s to a dynamic third round. Fight!
* To recap: he’s been Eomer in ‘The Lord of the Rings’, Bones in ‘Star Trek’, a Stormtrooper in the ‘Star Wars’ sequels, Judge Dredd in Alex Garland’s ‘Dredd’, Skurge in the ‘Thor’ movies, had parts in the ‘Riddick,’ ‘Doom’ and ‘Bourne series,’ and got his start on ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. At this point, all he really needs is to get cast in a DCU project. Good god