Mortal Kombat II ★★★

Released: 8 May 2026

Director: Simon Mcquoid

Starring: Karl Urban, Jessica McNamee, Adeline Rudolph, Josh Lawson, CJ Bloomfield, Martyn Ford

If you’ve been following all things Mortal Kombat over the past half a decade, you’ll most likely agree that the classic Midway fighting game series has seen better days. After peaking in 2011 with the self-titled reboot and following it up with the stellar Mortal Kombat X, NetherRealm’s martial arts soap opera chose the path of trendy multiverses and lost much of its gothic identity in the process. Taking notes from such a radical shift in the game’s art direction, Simon McQuoid’s recent theatrical reimagining sported a similarly muted colour palette and adopted a relatively grounded take on the lore-heavy saga. 5 years later, and his second stab at the material is everything the first film wasn’t: a fantastical romp across familiar realms, somehow both visually darker and tonally more offbeat than its predecessor. It’s essentially R-rated Looney Tunes — and that’s very much a compliment.

As its baseline, Mortal Kombat II takes several narrative threads from the 3D era of MK games and recreates iconic rivalries with a slight twist. Those familiar with the previous entry will recall that its finale hinted at the cameo of a real Hollywood icon, a mashup of 80s stereotypes by the name of Johnny Cage (Karl Urban). His arc as the unlikely protector of Earthrealm runs parallel to another character’s journey, the tale of Princess Kitana (Adeline Rudolph). After being adopted by the despotic Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford), the emperor of Outworld, Kitana is forced to participate in the Mortal Kombat tournament on the side of the bad guys — even if her true allegiance lies elsewhere. If you were one of the 90’s kids desperately trying to hide the game cartridge from your parents, you’ll find yourself right at home here.

For the sequel, audiences were promised a revamped Mortal Kombat experience, complete with the titular tournament and a plethora of returning characters. The creative team wasn’t lying: Mortal Kombat II is certainly much closer to the source material it’s adapting, reclaiming the classic dark atmosphere and harking back to the core aesthetic of Midway’s original trilogy. In the same breath, the second entry doubles down on its “apology film” promise, practically rendering its 2021 counterpart obsolete and feeling more like a compilation of cutscenes from the game’s story mode — going as far as using the IMAX format to make visual gags about it. It’s a video game film that is acutely aware of its video game origins, for better or worse.

Despite sinking hundreds of hours into the games since the heyday of SEGA Mega Drive, I think it’s important not to get carried away with the fan service of it all — and there is a lot of fan service here. Nostalgia is one hell of a drug, and this sequel revels in its “fan first” mentality compared to the flawed but somewhat distinctive premise of the previous entry. Fortunately, it’s also not above poking fun at some of the silliest aspects of the series and its fanbase, echoing the 90’s camp that defined the excellent Paul W.S. Anderson film. Though, it needs to be said that the post-MCU syndrome is real here: when you’ve already got Johnny Cage as the star of your show, maybe rendering Baraka and Kano as additional comic relief characters is a bit overkill.

As always, the main attraction here is the Kombat itself: led by a team of skilled martial artists, the sequel ups the ante with consistent spatial continuity and vastly superior action editing. McQuoid seems to have traded plot contrivances for additional fatalities, which are done with gusto worthy of Ed Boon’s dark sense of humour. In contrast with most action blockbusters that emerge from the West these days, the whole thing packs one hell of a punch and doesn’t shy away from lengthy hand-to-hand combat sequences — Blades of the Guardians this ain’t, but it’s a marked improvement upon the predecessor. It’s goopy, gloopy, gory, and all kinds of nasty fitting for the CG-heavy rebirth of Mortal Kombat in 2026.

While the original 1995 entry and the recent Scorpion’s Revenge animated film remain the most successful NetherRealm game-to-screen translations, Mortal Kombat II is a worthy addition to MK’s borderline impenetrable canon. It’s gleefully dumb, gratuitously violent, and smartly understands the simple pleasures of bad taste without overstaying its welcome. Tone down the snark for the inevitable threequel, add a Babality or two, and we might even have a new King of the Hill on the cards.