Films have certainly been on the back burner for me, whilst I made my way through quite a few TV shows and 4 seasons of ‘Attack on Titan’, but I think we may be back in film territory again. One such film that I’d been meaning to watch for a while was the sequel to one of Warner Bros’ more profitable films in the last few years!
‘Mortal Kombat II’ starts with the realm of Edenia falling to Shao Kahn, the Emperor of Outworld. Shao Kahn takes over the kingdom and all its subjects, including Kitana, the daughter of the previous ruler, King Jerrod. We then fast-forward 20 years with Earthrealm trying to make sure they have enough fighters for the next tournament of Mortal Kombat. Following the death of Kung Lao in the first film, Lord Raiden needs a fifth fighter. Enter Johnny Cage, an actor and stuntman who has fallen far from the grace of his younger years. Despite an impassioned plea from Raiden and Sonya Blade, Cage is reluctant to get involved given the stakes. However, it turns out that Mortal Kombat doesn’t care about individual preferences, and Cage finds himself coming face to face against a now grown-up Kitana, who fights for Outworld. Despite beating him, she shows mercy and doesn’t kill him. Cage, who now realises his predicament, gets involved. But Outworld have several tricks up its sleeve, and our wary group of heroes has its work cut out for them. Can Raiden and his warriors from Earthrealm stop Outworld from winning its tenth tournament in a row? Or will Shao Kahn finally be victorious and take over another realm?
Much of the cast from the first film returns. Lewis Tan is the ever stoic Cole Young, Mehcad Brooks is Jax, and Ludi Lin returns as fire-bending Liu Kang. It was nice to see them return, but I was extremely unimpressed by the character regression. From being central characters in the first film, their role in this sequel was basically as supporting characters with whom viewers can’t connect at all. Jessica McNamee and Tadanobu Asano also return as Sonya Blade and Lord Raiden. Now, these guys had some character development, in that they had larger roles than the other three, but again, it really felt like they were just supporting characters. Let’s talk a little bit about the newcomers to the series. Martyn Ford plays the villainous Shao Kahn. His role didn’t require much except for him to beat the crap out of opposing fighters, and I’d say he did that pretty well. He had limited lines, but I think he did an okay job. The real focus for the film was on Johnny Cage, played by the talented Karl Urban. There were only two characters with any sort of real development, and Cage was certainly one of those. The problem I had is that it felt that Urban didn’t have to do much, and the character wasn’t as complex as others he’s played before. Finally, the one standout performance for me was Adeline Rudolph playing the grown-up Princess Kitana. Her story seems to be the only one of any substance, and even then, in certain parts, she was overlooked!
I mean, when I watched the first film, I didn’t particularly gush about it to everyone I knew. It was a good watch, and I guess a part of me was excited about a sequel, just to see how they would up the ante. Unfortunately for me, I was quite bored and felt that I was watching one of those YouTube fan films. In a way, the appeal of the first film was that we had a central character, Cole Young, and the story was more about how he had to come to terms with losing his family as he battled these otherworldly fighters. This film, although actually showing the tournament, was filled with too much filler nonsense. Wow, I’m being a little brutal here. Maybe we need to change the mood. Let’s talk about the good things. The fight scenes were pretty good! Sometimes you’re watching films like this, and you’re like, oh man, this looks so fake, but here the scenes were pretty believable!
I’m assuming that they had a greater budget for this film, due to how well the first one had done. The CGI was good, and I didn’t feel like they had skimped on that. As I said before, the choreography of the fights was executed well, and I suppose in a film about a fighting game, that’s kinda the main point. The music, I was disappointed in. ‘Mortal Kombat’ has one of, if not the most iconic, fighting game music, and they didn’t use it until the end credits. What is the point? Overall, a really disappointing sequel, which invariably ends the progress of the franchise. Guess I now have to watch the Street Fighter film this week?
Rating:
Story: ★★
Acting: ★½
Cinematography: ★★★½
Music: ★★½
Enjoyability: ★½