Mortal Kombat II (2026) Review: Bloody, Dumb Fun
The fighters are back in another bloody tournament full of broken bones, flying limbs, dumb one-liners, and ridiculous action.
The story barely matters here, as finally Mortal Kombat II understands exactly what this franchise is supposed to be.
Plot
Johnny Cage joins other fighters in the ultimate, no-holds-barred battle to defeat the dark rule of Shao Kahn, a powerful tyrant who threatens the very existence of the Earthrealm and its defenders
Good Points
Karl Urban absolutely nails Johnny Cage
The gore and Fatalities go ridiculously hard
Fight choreography is a huge improvement
Humour lands far more consistently this time
Embraces the franchise’s ridiculousness instead of fighting against it
Several arena designs look fantastic
Crowd-pleasing energy throughout
Bad Points
The plot is paper-thin*
Some CGI looks painfully artificial
Emotional moments get rushed through quickly
Some dialogue is extremely cheesy
Non-fans probably won’t get much out of it
A few fights are edited a little too heavily
My Thoughts on Mortal Kombat II
This sequel finally remembers why people liked Mortal Kombat in the first place
If you have watched the first movie, you will know that it spent so much time setting things up that it forgot the actual tournament mattered, so you’ll be glad to know this one fixes that problem almost instantly, as it finally knows people bought tickets to watch fighters beat each other senseless in increasingly ridiculous ways.
Everything also feels bigger this time - bigger fights, bigger personalities, bigger gore, bigger stupidity, which is exactly what Mortal Kombat should be.
Karl Urban completely steals the film
The second Johnny Cage appears on the screen, the energy changes completely, simply because Karl Urban clearly undersood the assignment perfectly, where he plays Cage as arrogant, washed-up, irritating, funny, and somehow still lovable underneath all the ego, and I also liked that the film lets him look genuinely out of his depth at times, as he’s not treated like some flawless action hero, so half the fun comes from watching him panic, get thrown around arenas, or slowly realise he’s surrounded by people who can literally freeze him solid.
The violence goes absolutely overboard
And thank God for that.
The fights here are brutal in the exact way they needed to be, and the fatalities especially are completely ridiculous, so we end up getting multiple moments where no doubt the audience watching will be reacting and cheering when certain scenes hit, and you know what, that’s Mortal Kombat baby.
Another issue from the first film that is fixed here is how flat some of the fights felt, because the characters actually fight differently now and everything just feels different - the arenas are more memorable, powers get used creatively, and the choreography feels much more confident overall, where some of the locations genuinely looked ripped straight out of the games, so on the big screen in particular, it all looked fantastic.
The story barely matters
Look, the plot here is incredibly thin, so this is very clearly one of those films where the story mainly exists to move people between fight scenes, and I don’t think the filmmakers were particularly worried about hiding that.
You also have some supporting characters barely leave an impression before disappearing again, several emotional moments feel rushed, and certain returning characters are sidelined hard.
But, none of that damaged the experience much for me because the pacing keeps everything moving quickly enough that you rarely stop to think about it, because the film survives entirely on momentum, and for Mortal Kombat, that feels like the right approach.
Some of the CGI definitely struggles
Not all the visuals work though, because while some/most scenes look fantastic, you do get others that look like actors standing inside a very expensive video game cutscene, where afew backgrounds feel distractingly artificial, especially during some of the larger arena moments, but thankfully, the movie rarely slows down long enough for the weaker effects to completely derail things.
But there are definitely moments where you can feel the green screen working overtime.
It’s finally comfortable being dumb
And I mean that as praise, as so many modern action films desperately want to feel important or emotionally profound, but Mortal Kombat II knows it’s a movie about people punching monsters until somebody explodes, so it accepts that reality immediately, and because of that, it ends up being far more entertaining than I had hoped it would be, and granted, I went in with low expectations, but what can I say, I had a lot of fun with it.
Final Verdict
Mortal Kombat II is incredibly entertaining I thought, maybe it was my low expectations as mentioned that helped with that, but this one was a total surprise for me.
It was exactly the kind of sequel this franchise needed.
Trailer
Directed by - Simon McQuoid
Written by - Jeremy Slater
Cast includes - Karl Urban, Adeline Rudolph, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Tati Gabrielle, Lewis Tan, Damon Herriman, Chin Han, Tadanobu Asano, Joe Taslim and Hiroyuki Sanada
Cinematography by - Stephen F. Windon
Running time - 116 minutes
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I can't wait to see MK2. I didn't like the fact that Johnny Cage got an older dude to play him seeing as he is young in the games but with the way you described his performance I am more excited.
I think they really screwed up the approach with the 2021 release so a lot of time was spent tidying up those parts - which clearly impacted the flow. But like you, I saw it for what it was and liked it. I wanted more though and here's hoping the third instalment is better if/when it's released.