Mortal Kombat II

I liked it more than the first one because it fixes exactly what bothered me most there: the solemnity. The 2021 film seemed determined to build serious mythology around something that needed blood, punches, silly lines, trashy posing and fun without too much shame. This is still limited, but it understands better what Mortal Kombat is.

The key is Karl Urban as Johnny Cage. As soon as he enters, the film breathes differently. He does not turn it into a marvel, but he brings the humor that was missing: swagger, self-parody, faded-actor one-liners, ridiculous ego and the feeling that someone finally knows this should not be played like Shakespearean tragedy. Urban is not subtle, of course, but nobody is asking him to be. He is there to lift the show, and he does.

Johnny Cage also works as the natural replacement for the bland protagonist of the previous film. Cole Young was the big problem: a new, dull, charmless character placed in the middle of a franchise full of far more recognizable fighters. Here, even if Cole is still around, the center of energy changes. Johnny is loud, cheesy, vain and very enjoyable to watch. Exactly what the saga needed to stop feeling like a funeral with fatalities.

The film also improves because there is finally more sense of tournament. In the first one everything was preparation, marks, chosen ones, training and promises of something that never quite arrived. Here the video game is felt more clearly: fights, matchups, characters coming and going, powers, rivalries and a more direct structure. The script is not good, but at least it gets in the way less.

The fights are more enjoyable. There is blood, impact, creatures, effects and deaths designed to make fans smile. Not all of them have the same force and some are quickly forgotten, but the film gives itself more fully to spectacle. When it embraces the brutal, the exaggerated and the ridiculously violent, it works better than when it tries to explain too much.

It still seems like a fairly stupid film to me, but now it is stupid with more joy. And that changes a lot. Mortal Kombat does not need to pretend to have depth; it needs attitude, rhythm, recognizable characters and no fear of excess. This sequel gets closer to that. It has more color, more cheek, more jokes and more awareness of its own silliness.

I also appreciated that the supporting characters feel a little more alive. Kitana, Sonya, Jax, Liu Kang, Raiden, Scorpion, Sub-Zero and the rest are still closer to character-select icons than deep dramatic beings, but that bothers less here. They are combat toys with visual charisma, and that is mostly enough.

The fan service is very present, sometimes too present, but it makes sense. Mortal Kombat lives from that character, that move, that line, that fatality. If the film does not offer that, it offers almost nothing. The difference is that here the wink usually comes with more energy and less self-importance than in the previous one.

The problem is that, although it improves, it is still an uneven adaptation. The script remains weak, the dialogue is sometimes stone-heavy and there are stretches assembled only to place the next reference. The film works through accumulation of moments, not because it has a solid story. When Urban is not there, or when there is no fight, the seams show.

Visually, it has effective shots, fun violence and the odd strong image, but it still lacks real cinematic imagination. It is not enough to put blood and powers on screen; they need to become memorable. And there the film improves on the first one, yes, but it does not become a great action film.

Even so, this time it bored me less. The first seemed like a fighting nonsense that took itself far too seriously. This is still a fighting nonsense, but a more conscious, more rowdy and more watchable one. I do not ask Mortal Kombat to be elegant; I ask it not to be ashamed of being brutal, cheesy and fun.

Karl Urban is what I would remember most. His Johnny Cage enters as if he were telling the film: "relax, this is about beating people up with style." And he is right. Every time he appears, the tone corrects itself. He does not solve every problem, but he covers the biggest hole in the previous film: the lack of charisma and humor.

In the end, for me it is a clearly superior sequel: entertaining, bloody and much more likeable. It is not good in the serious sense of the word, and it does not entirely need to be. It has flaws, clumsiness and plenty of noise, but also more tournament, more fun, more spectacle and a Johnny Cage who understands the movie better than almost everyone else. For me it rises well above the first: not a perfect fatality, but at least this time there is kombat with some charm.