Mortal Kombat 2 Reviews Can’t Decide If It’s Monumentally Dumb And Kind Of Awesome Or Just A Boring Mess

Mortal Kombat is a fighting game in which players compete for the honor of decapitating their opponent in the most cartoonishly gruesome way possible. Adapting that gimmick into a live-action movie requires a delicate balancing act of taking the whole thing extremely seriously while also embracing the absurdity of it all. Critics are split on whether Mortal Kombat II succeeds at this thankless task. Some are calling it a decently fun time watching weirdos beat the crap out of each other. Meanwhile, at least one review accused it of being a sequel that “combines direct-to-video schlock with blockbuster boredom.”

Out May 8, Mortal Kombat 2 is director Simon McQuoid’s continuation of the 2021 movie, which was extremely faithful to the source material and burdened with way too much exposition. It spent more time setting up the history of its characters and the stakes of the titular “Mortal Kombat” tournament between Outworld and Earthrealm than having fun. Can the sequel, led by Karl Urban as Johnny Cage, avoid a similarly forgettable fate?

It’s currently sitting at a respectable 73 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, making it far and away the best-reviewed video game movie of the year so far. That’s not quite “oh wait, this movie’s actually good?” territory, nor is it the car crash that stirs morbid curiosity. Rather than being just another middle-of-the-road video game cash grab, however, conflicting reviews suggest there might be a spark of something more interesting beneath all of the expected gore and goofy one-liners.

Inexplicably, McQuoid bleeds any tension from these sequences with a mangled visual language that makes fights hard to follow and the quest feel like an afterthought. Suspense cannot build because in every other scene, [screenwriter Jeremy] Slater’s script delivers another exposition drop to explain the tournament, the realms, the revenants — on and on! Video games are a visual medium. Movies are a visual medium. Yet much of this movie feels like I got locked into a tedious podcast. – Kristy Puchko

The first film showcased a willingness to replicate the game’s brash mutilative gore – and there’s more of that here too (even if it’s less effectively nasty this time) – but the buildup to an impaling is never as involving as I wanted. Without the ability to play on offer, we’re left hoping that returning director Simon McQuoid can pull us in and make us feel it, our bodies jolting around with every jab, but the choreography is all so choppily handled and the stakes so meaningless (death is not the end in this game) that it’s increasingly hard to care all that much (I was not expecting to be quite so watch-checkingly bored). – Benjamin Lee

You’d expect for a movie based on one of the most violent game series of all time to have some pretty grotesque carnage, and in this regard, the sequel absolutely delivers. Not only are there multiple fatalities that might upset a sensitive stomach, but this movie has a shocking body count. The franchise has never shied away from offing its characters, nor has it shied away from resurrecting them ad nauseum, but several heroes and villains meet gruesome and unexpected demises that go a long way to reminding the audience that the combat is mortal, after all. – Chrishaun Baker

A lot is made of the huge stakes in Mortal Kombat — every loss and every death Earthrealm’s champions suffer is potentially devastating. At the same time, this sequel traffics in necromancy and resurrections to such a degree that death also doesn’t seem to matter all that much in this universe. True to the games or not, it’s a strange mix that makes it difficult to fully emotionally invest in proceedings. – Amon Warmann

Mortal Kombat II is just McQuoid turning a big dial that says “fan service” while looking back at test audiences for their reaction: You want Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) back? What if he’s Noob Saibot now? You want Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada)? He’ll say the line! Aside from the occasional signs of energy from Urban, the movie only really sparks to life when laser-eyed Australian mercenary Kano (Josh Lawson) is brought back for reasons even the other characters in the movie acknowledge are unwarranted. But Kano, spouting endless commentary on how shit Johnny’s movies are, how much eye makeup Quan Chi wears, and how we need to save the world on behalf of unlimited breadsticks and threesomes, provides not just much-needed comic relief but a reminder that there’s nothing worse than taking your source material more seriously than it takes itself. – Alison Willmore

[A] tonal uncertainty appears throughout and becomes impossible to ignore as soon as the finale is in sight. You’re never fully sure whether this early-career filmmaker is intentionally leaning into the ridiculousness of the position he’s put himself in by leaving his best work in his last movie, or simply losing control of impenetrable material that might be good if it didn’t try quite so hard. Earthrealm and Outworld cycle through matchup after matchup as the future of everything hangs in the balance, but the iterative tension rarely makes sense. Powers appear to shift based on narrative convenience, while the contest’s cosmic “rules” are negotiable at best. The result is strained effort without rhythm or reason. – Alison Foreman

What’s most winning about Mortal Kombat II is how uncalloused it is. It feels almost perverse to say that the movie adapted from a video game whose entire point was to see which gory kill you could perform on another fighter is earnestly heartfelt, but it’s true. The film really does seem to care about the story more than the perfunctory “here’s some cool stuff” IP cynicism we seem to get too much of these days. That attitude, in turn, makes elements like the role reversals between Good and Evil and the brutal demises of hero characters hit that much harder. – Bill Bria

It’s hard not to be cynical when a film like this one is released—in a form that feels barely complete, and like the studio behind it was smugly satisfied as it poured pig slop into a trough shaped like a novelty popcorn bucket. But ultimately, it may not be the fault of audiences at large when films like Mortal Kombat II fill up the multiplex. – Siddhant Adlakha