What makes a good video game movie? As a gamer who began the journey through arcades and button-mashing my keyboard on Windows 98 in my early teens, growing up gave me the privilege to watch many of these pixelated characters come to life.
In the past decade, Hollywood gave us Sonic, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Tomb Raider and many such wins, but there were forgettable misses, too—Borderlands, Uncharted, Monster Hunter, and Assassin’s Creed, to name a few. It is this shaky climate, which makes many a gamer shudder when they hear of yet another adaptation.
But when Simon McQuoid decided to reboot the 1995 Paul W. S. Anderson super hit in 2021, we got a new, refreshing take on Mortal Kombat.
The latest Mortal Kombat II adds to this and forms a cohesive two-picture spectacle. But what makes a good fighting movie out of a great fighting game?
Acrobatic action? Check. Tight fight sequences? Check. A great premise? Check. Campy-looking-yet-menacing colourful weirdos fighting one another with even weirder powers? Double check.
I have been a fan of NetherRealm’s fighting games since Mortal Kombat IV, and I have continued on that gaming journey for the past two decades. They are famously fast-paced, with hurried exposition and back-to-back fights that you often play catch-up. The latest film adaptation does exactly that.
Every new game has been an exercise in the game studio, finding creative ways to make each of its now-legendary characters murder one another. If the 2021 movie was all about overtly spending way too much time setting the context and letting newcomers onto the entire concept of tournaments deciding the fates of different realms, it made many of them check their watches one too many times in the cinemas. And bring in new characters such as Cole Young, played by Lewis Tan, and it was a recipe for a movie that did not do as well as it hoped.
But the sequel flips this entire thing, and wastes absolutely no time in jumping into an already tediously set premise. Exposition is razor thin, and it just feels like we are going from one fight to another—the chosen champions of each realm in deathmatches with one another.
By the interval, I had a bone to pick with the editor for some shoddy cuts and hurried plot, but I also felt like high-fiving the stunt coordinator and the set designer. It was like the games had come back to life.
Mortal Kombat II quickly earns its name by finishing off some famous characters in spectacular gore (hence the Adults Only rating in India), but it also sheds the spotlight on two of the favourites in the MK Universe—Princess Kitana, played by the audaciously talented Adeline Rudolph, and Johnny Cage, portrayed by the excellent Karl Urban.
Tati Gabrielle plays Kitana’s bodyguard, Jade. Veterans Tadanobu Asano, Chin Han, Joe Taslim, and Hiroyuki Sanada return as Lord Raider, Shang Tsung, Sub-Zero (now, Noob Saibot), and Scorpion, respectively. And the movie uses them with perfection, including giving us a glimpse of those famous fatalities.
However, despite the visuals and the amazing set design, most of it falls flat to an average moviegoer. The villain itself is the hurried pacing, which destroys the overall tempo of the theatre experience. In fact, in some parts, the great soundtrack and background score are cut in dubious places, it feels like a crime.
Mortal Kombat II runs just minutes shy of the two-hour mark, and that itself is its Achilles Heel. McQuoid should have extended it by 15 more minutes or so, provided some healthy pauses, and added elements that made it such that the audience would have invested in these characters. Maybe the director did it, maybe the film was chopped down in the editing room... maybe it is just WarnerBros doing what they do best—destroying a perfectly good movie by forcing edits (remember, Batman V Superman). But it stands to reason that this was a great attempt that seems to have suffered due to all the unnecessary cramming and the lack of good music in the final cut.
But as a Mortal Kombat fan, did I enjoy it? Absolutely. I had a ball of a time. If you are a fan, too, a big screen watch should be considered. The campy 1990s vibe and the tones make it quite a fun ride!
Go for the spectacle. Go for the fight, the gore, and the celebration of the soul of the games. Mortal Kombat II is a divisive film; you either like it or you hate it... But just like the games, you can’t ignore it.
Film: Mortal Kombat II
Director: Simon McQuoid
Cast: Adeline Rudolph, Karl Urban, Jessica McNamee, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Tadanobu Asano, Chin Han, Joe Taslim, Hiroyuki Sanada
Rating: 3 out of 5 | ★★★☆☆
