Mortal Kombat II Review: Finally, a Sequel That Gets It Right

We gave the 2021 Mortal Kombat a 5 out of 10. We stand by it. The talent was there, the look was right, but the decision to center the story on an original character named Cole Young — at the expense of the entire iconic roster fans actually wanted — was a critical misfire. Five years later, director Simon McQuoid and writer Jeremy Slater return with a film that clearly listened to that feedback. The result is messy, loud, exposition-heavy, and deeply fun. This is the Mortal Kombat movie we’ve been waiting for since 1995.

Karl Urban and Kano: The Film’s Secret Weapons

Karl Urban as Johnny Cage is exactly the shot in the arm this franchise needed. He’s not the cocky, quippy, younger Johnny Cage some fans expected — Urban plays him as a washed-up action star trying to find his footing in a world he doesn’t understand, and it works beautifully. It takes about half the film to fully win you over, but by the end, he’s made the character his own in a way that stands on its own merits.

And then there’s Josh Lawson’s Kano — back from the dead via the most self-aware loophole the film could muster — who remains the single funniest, most entertaining character in this franchise. Every scene he shares with Quan Chi is gold. The 3D-printed eyeball sequence alone is worth the price of admission. These two carry the film’s comedic weight effortlessly, and when they’re paired with the bone-dry humor of the tournament world around them, it creates a tone that somehow makes the absurdity feel earned.

The Tournament Is Finally Here — And It Delivers

The biggest complaint about the first film was that despite being named after a tournament, we barely got one. Mortal Kombat II fixes this completely. We get Shao Kahn (a genuinely imposing Martyn Ford), Outworld, Netherrealm, an actual bracket of fights, and Fatalities that will make the audience react out loud. This is the film that finally treats the source material with the seriousness the games deserve.

The fight highlight reel in this film is better than anything the franchise has put to screen before. Liu Kang vs. Kung Lao is the single best fight sequence in any Mortal Kombat movie — full stop. It’s kinetic, brutal, emotionally charged, and faithful to the games’ iconic sibling rivalry in a way that genuinely surprised us. Johnny Cage vs. Baraka is the other standout, playing on Baraka’s unexpected character depth and delivering a payoff that earned genuine laughter and applause in our packed Thursday night screening. Jax’s death scene hit hard precisely because the film had built enough goodwill with the character to make it land.

The set design and visual effects are a 9.5 out of 10 across the board. Outworld looks genuinely spectacular. The Pit level, the Netherrealm sequences, the color contrast in every arena — whoever is in charge of production design on this film deserves recognition.

Where It Falls Short

Let’s be honest about the weaknesses, because they’re real. Jeremy Slater — whose credits include the 2015 Fantastic Four and the Netflix Death Note adaptation — is not a strong dialogue writer, and it shows. Large stretches of the film’s exposition scenes feel like characters reading lore aloud from a Wikipedia page. Cole Young (Lewis Tan), while mercifully sidelined from the center of the story, is given some of the most awkward monologue writing in recent blockbuster memory. The man is working with what he’s given; the script just isn’t giving him much.

The ending is also genuinely frustrating. The film builds a tournament with real rules and real stakes, then throws most of them out the window in the final act for the sake of getting Katana into the climactic fight. The logic gymnastics involved would be more bothersome if the fight itself wasn’t so satisfying — Adeline Rudolph fully earns her moment and her costume complaints from the trailers dissolve the second she starts moving. But the rule-breaking is sloppy and critics are right to call it out.

The iconic theme also gets criminally underused. Playing it only over the end credits instead of during the final fight is a baffling choice that the entire audience felt — you could hear the collective confusion when the credits rolled and the music finally hit. Play the song during the fight. It’s not complicated.

The Verdict for Fans vs. Critics

The 64% Rotten Tomatoes score and the 96% Google audience score tell the whole story here. Critics who aren’t familiar with the games are watching this and seeing sloppy dialogue, convenient plot logic, and a story held together with duct tape. They’re not wrong. Fans who know the difference between Outworld and Earthrealm, who understand what Noob Saibot’s appearance means, who got chills when Scorpion showed up as a guide through Netherrealm — they’re having the time of their lives.

We sit somewhere in between: fans first, critics second. And as fans, this is a massive improvement over the first film. As critics, it’s a 7 — fun, flawed, and absolutely worth seeing in IMAX if you have any love for this franchise at all. Get a better writer for the third one, keep everyone else, and Mortal Kombat 3 could be something special.

Finish him? Not quite. But we’re not done watching.