FIGHT!
As we were coming out of the pandemic we got a new Mortal Kombat film that earned a modest $84m, a figure that was likely suppressed by the world still nervously coming out of a worldwide lockdown. We now have Mortal Kombat II, a sequel that would seem to be the part of an intended trilogy and what will really sells this to the avid fan base is the introduction of fan favourite Johnny Cage (Karl Urban revelling in the kitsch) introduced in a nicely recreated trailer in the style of a 80’s style actioner. But times have changed for him and he is now reduced to selling signed pictures at conventions. It’s not long before he’s recruited and whisked away to assist in the fight against Shao Kahn, a mask skulled muscleman that looks like Skeletor’s long lost brother, who now rules the Earthrealm having taken its recently killed former ruler’s daughter Litana as his own. It’s down to Johnny and his cohort of fearsome fighters to do battle and take back the Earthrealm.
Mortal Kombat II audience…
Aimed squarely at fans of the game there’s a lot for them to enjoy here with director Simon McQuoid returning to helm the bloodily realised carnage. But balancing that out is a higher quota of quips than the previous film delivered best of all by Josh Lawson as Kano with deliriously brash non PC although at one point he drops an out of the blue C-bomb for little more than shock value.
Finish him!
Though this is something of a CGI fest the fights are true to the original game with each of the character’s skills defining the fights which are as brutal as their animated computer counterparts and with landscapes and angles all rendered by CGI it’s a film that would have lent itself well to the now seemingly ignored 3D format. So whilst the story is as by the numbers as might be expected from a game to film adaptation there’s some jarringly stilted dialogue, ‘I renounce your legacy of pain and cruelty’, a line shortly to be served in Prince Harry’s divorce papers, being just one.
But Mortal Kombat II is very much for the gamers and gamers only and if ever a film was made for adolescent boys then this is it.
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Here’s the trailer…..
