It’s summer time! Which can only mean one thing regarding film: Hollywood is going to start releasing franchise movies at breakneck speed. I will do my best to cover most of these features, but I can’t guarantee that my brain won’t be putty by the end of it. Which, in an ironic sense, works well for my latest watch, “Mortal Kombat II”.
Based on the violent video game series from the 90s and sequel to “Mortal Kombat” (2021) , “Mortal Kombat II” follows washed-up Hollywood superstar Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) and the ninja princess Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), as they compete in a deadly multi-dimensional tournament that will decide the fate of Earth. The movie is faithful to its source material in the sense that it is dudes and ladies fighting each other for almost two hours. There’s some plot sprinkled in between, such as Johnny learning to become the hero he’s meant to be, or Kitana avenging her father, who was killed by the evil Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford). However, this movie is mostly intense violence, CGI, stunt choreography, fist fighting, and everything a teenage boy or fan of the series would want. If you’re looking for something philosophical or deep, then this is not the movie for you!
“Mortal Kombat II” has quite a few humorous moments and does not take itself too seriously. For example, there’s a scene where the main cast of heroes have to go to a desert village to recruit a monster man named Baraka (CJ Bloomfield). Baraka gets annoyed with Johnny, and the scene quickly devolves into a whimsical set piece as the two do battle with Johnny jumping through tents and using the environment to his advantage.
Technically speaking, nothing remarkable really happened, with the exception of the foley work and maybe some of the production design. CGI is definitely used as a crutch for quite a few moments, including the big final battle. There are a lot of “lightning portals” and characters fading into other locations that are overused for worldly travel. From a practical effects standpoint, blood and gore are also used quite a bit, but not to an egregious degree.
All in all, video game to film adaptations have become unsurprisingly popular in recent years with movies like “Sonic the Hedgehog”, “Minecraft”, and the upcoming “Street Fighter” or “Resident Evil” pictures. Adapting anything from another medium into film is already a difficult task, and “Mortal Kombat II” did alright for what it’s worth. Unfortunately, while better than the previous 2021 film, I personally don’t find it any more enjoyable than the original 1995 “Mortal Kombat”. Which I suppose falls under the age-old debate of “do we need another reboot of this film”?
