Mortal Kombat II

Some of you may not know about this, but around the beginning of 1989 i started training Judo in my hometown Uddevalla. It was around late 1990 when i was 13 years old i did my final year training Judo and i had a yellow Judo belt at that time. I was supposed to go for the orange belt, that was the plan at least. But that´s when i decided go fully invested into my local tennis club instead, who i stayed with quite many years. So i never took the orange belt and dropped out of Judo completely. I did meet my Judo trainer sometimes dowtown, who tried to convince me to come back. But at that time i felt more interested training tennis, and nothing would change my mind honestly. During the 90´s i toured across Sweden with our local tennis team, and even if we won a few matches we did loose some big matches as well. I am forever grateful though for the short period of time i did train Judo, and i still have some good memories from that time period. During the 90´s i did watch my good school friend Björn in karate matches, since they would allow a smaller amount of people as an audience. This was actually quite fun because karate is different from Judo, physically and mentally different. In 1995 both me and Björn were really excited because a film adaptation of the extremely popular video game Mortal Kombat was released in cinemas. Of course we were at the premiere weekend, where Björn actually dressed up in his karate clothes to the cinema. I still love this film still today, Mortal Kombat from 1995 is a really fun martial arts film with great performances, some really cool fighting sequences and a good sense of humour. Let´s not even talk about Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. After a lot of successfull Mortal Kombat games over the years we did get a new updated film adaptation of Mortal Kombat in 2021. A film i did enjoy and i can still recommend. So here we are with the official sequel to the 2021 film, where we see both actors from the previous film plus Karl Urban joining the cast as Johnny Cage. Is this latest Mortal Kombat film the best martial art film of this year or should they stop making sequels completely?

Emperor Shao Kahn ( Martyn Ford ) kills King Jerrod ( Desmond Chiam ) in Mortal Kombat, taking over Edenia in the name of Outworld as well as Queen Sindel ( Ana Thu Nguyen ) and young Princess Kitana ( Sophia Xu ) as his consort and daughter, respectively. Twenty years later, a nre Mortal Kombat tournament is on the horizon. Back in Earthrealm, Lord Raiden ( Tadanobu Asano ) and Sonya Blade ( Jessica McNamee ) visit Hollywood action star Johnny Cage ( Karl Urban ), who seems to be struggling with his past. He tries to stay relevant in a modern world without any bigger success. This visit however from Lord Raiden and Sonya give him an oppurtunity to take his dignity back, by fighting in the Mortal Kombat tournament. At first he is having doubts taking them seriously, until he accept the offer and get a chance to proof his skills.

I have a feeling this latest Mortal Kombat sequel will divide fans of the classic video games, including fans of the more modern Mortal Kombat games as well. One of the issues that some fans had since the 2021 film adaptation was that there was no tournament there. In this film we get an actual torunament, just like we did in the 1995 live adapation film of Mortal Kombat. And i have to say, i actually think this sequel manage to capture the look, and a pretty good character development of several of the iconic fighters of the video game. Let´s talk about the look of this torunament for a while, we see different fights at different locations and in some fights it really looks similar to the fighting locations. I think details such as this is very important to take notice of, when you know that fans of the video games remember a lot of important details. For example when Shao Khan ( Martyn Ford ) fight down in the most demonic sewer i have seen, it looks pretty similar to how it looked like in the video games. Speaking of characters, actor Karl Urban as Johnny Cage was a great casting choice. He is a bitter, former action star of the 90´s and Karl Urban manage to capture that personality in Johnny Cage. Best performance comes from he real funny character known as Kano, played by actor Josh Lawson ( who fans of TV series House Of Lies will recognize ) deliver some really funny dialogue in this film. His scenes together with Karl Urban was actually more entertaining than i expected. I like the character of Baraka ( CJ Blomfield ) and especially his fight scene against Johnny Cage. The fighting scenes in general looks alright, some scenes are more effective than others and i appreciate the gory violence. I do think this film capture the fighting skills of several well known fighters as well as their physical look. The fact that they play the theme song from the original film towards the end, this was something i really appreciated. You get a nostalgic feeling while it also feels like they pay tribute to the 90´s. Any flaws with this film? It is very difficult defeating the original film from 1995 and Mortal Kombat II is not as good as that specific film. I will say though i found myself having a good time with this sequel, director Simon McQuid return with another Mortal Kombat film that is pure popcorn entertainment, that will surely please martial arts film fans, and fans of the video games as well. I feel like having a fight right now down in the demonic sewer, anyone up for the challenge?

Rating: DDD