Mortal Kombat II comes five years on from the woeful and tedious Mortal Kombat reboot, opening with Kitana as a child, given a necklace by her Dad, King Jerrod (Desmond Chiam – With Love), as he’s about to go into battle… and be defeated by the hand (and implements) of Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford).
Well, that does happen within the first few minutes, and explains why the latter needs dealing with, and it’ll require a tournament – or “turn-a-ment”, as Karl Urban (Thor: Ragnarok) calls it – where you could physically die.
Oddly, when the scene concludes, though, and the title appears, it just says “Mortal Kombat“, with no “II“… which does finally come at the end of the film.
20 years on, and Jade (Tati Gabrielle – The Last Of Us Season 2) has stood by Kitana (Adeline Rudolph – Hellboy: The Crooked Man) as her bodyguard all this time, but somewhere out there, there’s an amulet of immense power, and that’s what everyone wants.
Meanwhile in reality, Johnny Cage (Urban) is a fading action hero, having a tired fight in a movie scene where one woman dies from a spear going through her shoulder(!)
His star has faded, hence he gets ignored at Comic Cons, although I did spot one of his posters is a rip-off of the original Mission Impossible movie poster. Still, no further issues will come about because Sonya Blade and Raiden turn up to insist he takes part in the Mortal Kombat tournament, in order to save the world, because he’s been chosen by the Gods. As you do.
Since this could mean he becomes ‘brown bread’, he’s reticent to take part, so opts out and gets back to considering himself a washed-up actor. Still, when the time comes, he’ll get teleported back for a fight or three, so there’s no escape.
Meanwhile, in MK-land, Kano (Josh Lawson) is brought back to life by Quan Chi (Damon Herriman – Together), after Sonya delivered the fatality last time and took his eye, all in return for him helping with the amulet-finding, given how he was the one who stole it.
There’s a fair bit of humour at times, primarily from Urban – who is the best thing in this, but also from Lawson on occasion, such as when he’s promised the new eye, then moans about how it’s delivered to him, with Quan Chi rolling it on the grimy floor to him, leading to one of Kano’s many insults at him, referring to him as Pennywise, such is his appearance.
On the downside, Mortal Kombat II has very disjointed storyteling, as it just lurches from one scene to the next without much reason, making this overlong sequel quite a slog at times, especially when most of the fight scenes are quite dull. I understand the IMAX version expands to 1.90:1 for around 40-50 minutes, including some of the fight scenes, but I didn’t think I’d be engaged enough with it to pay the extra for IMAX. In the end, I was right about that.
Still, when I saw Baraka (CJ Bloomfield – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga) come onscreen, I actually thought he was played by Jason Flemyng, but without any make-up 😉
NOTE: There are no mid- not post-credits scenes. This film wasn’t expected to do well at the box office, so I guess the studio were erring on the side of caution by not creating a scene that wouldn’t get finished.
Mortal Kombat II is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Limited 4K Blu-ray Steelbook, Blu-ray and DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 116 minutes
Release date: May 8th 2026
Studio: Warner Bros
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1; 1.90:1 (IMAX version, some scenes) (ARRIRAW (4.5K), ARRIRAW (4.6K), Anamorphic Atlas Scope)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 3/10
Director: Simon McQuoid
Producers: Toby Emmerich, Todd Garner, Simon McQuoid, E Bennett Walsh, James Wan
Screenplay: Jeremy Slater
Characters: Ed Boon, John Tobias
Music: Benjamin Wallfisch
Cast:
Kitana: Adeline Rudolph
Johnny Cage: Karl Urban
Shao Kahn: Martyn Ford
Jade: Tati Gabrielle
Sonya Blade: Jessica McNamee
Jax Briggs: Mehcad Brooks
Liu Kang: Ludi Lin
Kano: Josh Lawson
Lord Raiden: Tadanobu Asano
Shang Tsung: Chin Han
Quan Chi: Damon Herriman
Bi-Han: Joe Taslim
Hanzo Hasashi / Scorpion: Hiroyuki Sanada
Kung Lao: Max Huang
Cole Young: Lewis Tan
Baraka: CJ Bloomfield
Queen Sindel: Ana Thu Nguyen
Young Kitana: Sophia Xu
King Jerrod: Desmond Chiam
Cage Movie Fan: Sam Cotton
Young Johnny Cage: Indy Urban
Bartender: Ed Boon
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.