Mortal Kombat II (2026): entertaining, very gory and pretty bad

Mortal Kombat II is the second film in the new movie saga that began with Mortal Kombat in 2021. We continue with the story based on the video game franchise created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, although, as with the first installment, it does not directly adapt the story of any specific game.

That said, it takes quite a few elements from the early titles and especially from Mortal Kombat II, the 1993 video game: Shao Kahn has a much bigger role, characters such as Kitana and Baraka appear and, above all, this time we finally get the tournament that the first film left pending. Even so, the movie mixes characters, relationships and events from different installments and builds its own story.

Simon McQuoid also returns as director, an Australian who before Mortal Kombat had mainly worked in advertising and for whom the 2021 film was his feature-film debut. 

This second installment also had much greater involvement from Ed Boon and the video games' creative team, which probably explains why there are many more nods, moves and details that fans will recognize.

The production doubled its budget, reaching 110 million dollars and much of the filming once again took place on the Gold Coast, Australia. It was also affected by the 2023 Hollywood actors' strike, which halted production and forced filming to resume months later, well into the Australian summer and under much more difficult weather conditions.

And after that introduction, I'll tell you the result leaves me with a pretty simple feeling: it's an entertaining movie, but I think it's pretty bad. 

The fights, gore and effects make it easy to watch, especially if you're a fan of the games, but the story does not hold up no matter how you look at it. And that's more a problem with the script and editing than with the plot itself.

Plot of Mortal Kombat II

As I said, the movie continues after the events of the previous one and this time gets much closer to the tournament that anyone with even a passing familiarity with Mortal Kombat expects to see. 

Earthrealm's champions have to face Shao Kahn and company, while new characters join the story, including Johnny Cage, played by Karl Urban.

You don't need to be a fan of the games to follow it, although obviously you'll recognize a lot more if you are. Characters, attacks, fatalities and constant references are all there, but the main story —fairly simple— can be understood without knowing anything about the franchise.

The script needed a couple more passes

The problem is that the story barely holds together. A lot of things happen just because. Or because the movie needs them to happen. 

For example, characters switch sides with surprising ease, including former villains who suddenly end up on the heroes' side with no transition at all. They're very undercooked plot twists.

Or there are the powers, where something similar happens. At certain moments someone discovers or uses an ability exactly when the scene needs it. 

The impression this leaves is that the script keeps making up solutions on the fly just so it can reach the next fight.

Don't get me wrong, I know this movie comes from a fighting game and I'm not expecting a Nolan story, but the mistakes are so obvious that they pull you right out of the plot.

On top of that, the editing doesn't help much either. There are situations that probably have an explanation within the universe of Mortal Kombat, but the movie rushes through them or presents them so confusingly that you end up wondering whether you missed something. 

Here's another example: I remember a line from one of the heroes at the moment of their death —I won't say which one to avoid spoilers— that makes absolutely no sense in the movie and creates plenty of confusion. If a future Mortal Kombat 3 ever appeared, maybe it would make sense, but if we stick to this film, it doesn't.

The movie also has another obvious problem: the sheer number of characters. There are so many that several seem to be there simply because they had to appear on the poster, and Cole —the protagonist?— is a good example: he takes part in the story, but for much of the movie it's hard to find a compelling reason for him to keep getting so much screen time, especially since he wasn't even in the original games.

Not every character needs a fully developed arc, but they should at least seem to be there for a believable reason. Clearly the goal is to keep putting familiar faces on screen so fans can recognize them.

The fights and effects are much better

Fortunately, once the punches start flying, the movie works much better. The choreography is well handled, there's variety between the different fights and visually it has enough strong moments for the action to do its job.

The effects didn't seem bad to me either. They're nothing spectacular, of course, but they do the job and support the fights well. They let the characters pull off the outrageous stuff you expect from Mortal Kombat without making it look like an (overly) cheap production.

This is one of the movie's contradictions. In terms of plot it has plenty of B-movie DNA, with easy solutions and script holes the size of the Titanic iceberg, but technically and in terms of budget it's far above what we'd normally associate with that kind of cinema.

Gore, exaggeration and video-game spirit

And continuing with the positives, where it gets things most right is precisely when it shows that this is Mortal Kombat. . There is blood, exaggerated hits and some absolutely wild fatalities designed to make you pull a “what the hell” face and laugh at the excess.

Just like the game, basically.

That's why the excess suits it. If they tried to make an overly realistic adaptation it would probably be worse —too unbelievable— whereas here the exaggerated violence helps give the movie a personality similar to the arcade game.

Of course there are fight scenes designed directly so viewers recognize moves, matchups or situations from the games. They don't always add much to the story, but as fan service they're fairly well integrated.

The humor helps it avoid taking itself too seriously

There's also the kind of humor that seems mandatory in almost every recent Hollywood blockbuster and that, in the previous movie, was mostly limited to Kano. Here, the structure of “fight, funny comment, serious moment, another joke, keep going” is the norm.

Mortal Kombat II knows it's telling a pretty absurd story, and the humor helps stop it from trying to become too self-important.

Karl Urban as Johnny Cage is probably the one who benefits most from this approach. His character fits perfectly in a movie that would rather have fun with what's happening than try to give it an importance it simply can't really have.

The problem is that this self-awareness doesn't fix the script either. A movie knowing it's a little absurd doesn't mean anything goes, and there are several moments here where the only explanation for what happens is basically “because it's cool.”

The best and the worst

The best part is pretty obvious: the fights, the gore and the way it embraces the games' most exaggerated side. It also helps that the technical level is good enough for the fights to be entertaining and not just look like actors throwing punches in front of a green screen. Its restrained runtime helps too.

The worst part is everything connecting those fights. The story is weak, there are too many characters for the amount of time they get, some decisions come out of nowhere and the editing manages to make certain moments even more confusing than they should be.

Verdict: entertaining, but not much more

Mortal Kombat II seems like a better movie than the first one to me. In every way.

On top of that, it keeps all its strengths, such as being an easy movie to watch if you know what you're getting into. It also improves the action and gore and adds more humor, so the almost two hours fly by. Still, when it's over, one feeling remains: it's a very forgettable movie.. 

As an adaptation it's acceptable, but as a movie it has a very poor, underdeveloped story.

So if what you want is to watch the characters from Mortal Kombat beat the hell out of each other, you'll probably have a good time. If you also expect a minimally coherent story tying all those fights together, then things get considerably harder.

Your call.

Technical details

Item	Information
Title	Mortal Kombat II
Year	2026
Runtime	1 h 56 min
Director	Simon McQuoid
Main cast	Karl Urban, Adeline Rudolph, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Tati Gabrielle, Lewis Tan, Chin Han, Tadanobu Asano, Joe Taslim and Hiroyuki Sanada
Genre	Action, adventure and fantasy
Country	United States
Available on	HBO Max