Details from IMDB:
Mortal Kombat II
The fan favorite champions — now joined by Johnny Cage himself — are pitted against one another in the ultimate battle to defeat the dark rule of Shao Kahn that threatens the very existence of the Earthrealm and its defenders.
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Initial Thoughts:
While people may think it is the death of theatres (which I don’t agree with, I just think they will be fewer and forced to change), I am enjoying not having to wait an overly long time for movies to come on streaming. This came out in May and is the case with lots of people I didn’t see it in theatres but when I discovered it was on Crave, Canadian streaming service which is quite good, and I had seen the first one, I decided to give this a watch.
Main Points:
I think this is a rare case where the sequel is better than the original. The first one was ok but this one leans heavier into the silliness (and humor) which can be found making a video game into multiple movies. I think Karl Urban is a great guy, one of the few celebs I’ve met, and I enjoyed his addition to the movie, Johnny Cage is the kind of silly/over-the-top characters that he’s good at playing (like Butcher), in this movie for a lot of it he’s also a bit of an asshole/loser. As with part 1 one there is some kind of plot but really, who cares? This movie is all about the the fight scenes, gory deaths and revenge, I think that’s the best thing to do with a video game movie, keep it simple.
Fight scenes and special effects are pretty good throughout, there is some gore and despite the way fatalities are in the game, it’s only gratitious here a couple of times. Kano is still a terrible person, like he was in the first movie, but he made me laugh and he got a new eye. I was not surprised to see him and several other characters come back from the dead, in this movie dead is only a temporary state of being. I did find it a little too long, a good 15-20 minutes could have easily been cut but such is the case for a lot of movies these days.
Final Thoughts:
Please don’t let your kids watch this, ages 18+ for graphic violence, blood and lots of coarse language. I give it 7 out of 10 and would reccomend it to anyone who played the video game, or who saw and enjoyed the first movie. I appreicated all of the Lord of the Rings references (Karl Urban was some of the movies) and there were some nice nods to the video games. If they have the same group I’d certainly like to see one more and I do give this a mild reccomend. As I said before, it’s based on video game, not Shakespeare and I think they capture the spirit and fun of the games pretty well, I think that’s about the best you’ll do with a MK movie.