Mortal Kombat II (2026) Movie Review

hello everyone and welcome to the concession stand here on the kb radio network i am your host kevin reed and welcome everybody to the review of

mortal combat

2 the sequel to the 2021 film entitled

Mortal Kombat and this is the fourth live action adaptation of the popular video games from the

90s and in Mortal Kombat 2 the premise is the champions of Earthrealm joined by Johnny Cage are forced into battle against one another as they attempt to resist the rule of Cheryl Khan whose rise threatens the survival of Earthrealm and its defenders.

uh joining the cast in this sequel is carl urban as johnny cage which was kind of a shock to me when that was announced a couple years ago that he was going to be johnny cage i was like well it's not that i don't like carl urban it

was just uh you know you kind of want a martial artist in his role but uh i'll get to carl urban in a second but as far as mortal kombat 2

I make no bones about it.

Huge Mortal Kombat fan going all the way back to when the video games,

you know,

I remember going to the arcade.

Yes.

Young folks.

Arcades going to play Mortal Kombat and then graduating to the

Sega Genesis and

Playstations and Xboxes.

Yes.

Before all that,

you had to go to the arcade.

And I was a huge Mortal Kombat.

man like everybody else because that was a very different game it was violent it was bloody it was it was just different man from anything else that we got in a video game around that time it's still to this day honestly i think

it's still one of the most innovative games that there is around you know and i know there are thousands if not millions of video games

that you can play,

you know,

but it's something about Mortal Kombat that appeals to everybody.

I don't care race.

I don't care age.

I don't care nationality.

I don't care.

Mortal Kombat just touches everybody.

And I was one of the millions and millions around the world that this,

this source material touched.

And so you

in 1995 when the original mortal kombat movie came out just like everybody else loved it loved it you know for the time it was the it was the bee's knees man it was an academy award worthy film and around that time but

it was it was limited because of number one they decided to make it pg-13 and number two the technology around that time it the special Cool.

effects wasn't up to par around that time but it was it was great for when it came out that particular film uh annihilation not so much and so we fast forward to 2021 and we get this new version in it they promised this is going to be r-rated and

i was like cool then the pandemic hit in 2020 and then

the movie was released on hbo max and in theaters at the same time i think i chose to watch it at home i think i watched it on max and unlike everybody else who couldn't stand that movie i

didn't have a problem with it i cannot acknowledge the flaws in that movie which it has plenty of i can acknowledge it but as far as a mortal kombat film

I wasn't 100%

disappointed.

I felt that the characters,

there was some real good character work in that film.

I thought it was pretty decent.

Decent.

But it needed to improve,

especially if we were going to move forward and incorporate Johnny Cage in the sequel,

which they teased at the end of that movie.

And they promised in this film.

Simon McCord,

he comes back to direct.

this film he directed the first one and they brought in Jeremy Slater who to write the film who gave us the Umbrella Academy on Netflix a show that I

really enjoyed throughout its run uh he also gave us moon night or disney plus you know the marvel studios uh uh or marvel television show which you know was mixed it

wasn't great but it was what it was and now they brought him in to write this film and i thought this was pretty pretty smart to do because if you just think of the Umbrella Academy...

with an ensemble cast you have a lot of characters a lot of story there he's used to that you know writing on that show creating that show well he didn't create it but writing doing a lot of writing on that show he's used to multiple characters and you had to flush out a lot of multiple characters in this movie i will say this without a

doubt is not even up for debate this movie is leaps in

bounds better than the first film and i actually liked the first film like i mentioned before but this movie makes that first film look so bad in my eyes if you hated the first film and watched this one you probably will wonder why

didn't they just do this for the first film it was that this movie is that much of an improvement now the movie has flaws is not perfect is not gonna,

pop up on any award consideration at the end of the year so we you can you can uh take a breath in that regard but as far as we're kind of unofficially kicking off the summer movie season at this point this

is a great jumping off point for the summer movie season this feel this is a true popcorn twizzlers coke movie

do you know sitting down and turning your brain off and enjoying the show i had so much fun with mortal kombat 2 let's let's let's go over the positives i don't have too many negatives to be honest with you but let's go over the positives because i do have a lot of those first and foremost they

took this is this is where this is how sequels are supposed to be done whenever they announce a sequel

to a movie that you know what had mixed reviews was kind of diversive you want that movie to improve you know improve on some of the mistakes or some of the things that people complain about and more often than not you

don't get that you know they just stay the course and it's the law of diminishing diminishing returns now when it comes to mortal kombat 2 they took everything that worked?

in the first film and it wasn't many things that worked but they took the things that did work in the first film and expound upon that exactly what a sequel is supposed to do and

on the flip side they took the things that didn't necessarily work in the first film and just just forgot about just swept it under the rug just let they just let think it about don't don't worry about that

you didn't see what you thought you saw you know we're gonna move on from that's basically what this movie did and i was i was in awe it was like two different i had to double check and make sure that the two this was the same director from

the first film because it was that vastly different it was it was so much of an improvement you can't believe that it was the sequel to that movie

You can't,

you would

think that this was a a reboot but it wasn't it wasn't a direct sequel to uh uh the first mortal combat well the mortal combat from uh 2021 uh the addition of johnny cage this was the big thing

you know with that tease at the end of the first film uh who's gonna play johnny cage we get car urban the great car urban who is who is tearing it up if you're not watching the you

boys their final season on prime oh my god you're missing you are missing this is probably their best season and the fact that it's the last season it brings a tear to my eye but carl urban along with everybody else on that show but carl urban is killing it this season and

he killed it here the way they incorporated johnny cage into this story into this film was genius absolute

Genius.

Karl Urban is not a martial artist.

he is not they have him they have johnny cage as an aging uh action movie star and they they leaned into it i mean full flesh just went all into that you know that's why we're not seeing a lot of him with the action and the the kicking and the fighting and all this here because he's an aging movie star he's an actor and

he's not even real well he is a real martial artist the way they set them up in the.

film but he's he's older now you know he doesn't have that that fire anymore uh but perfect use of carl urban carl urban he he is unexpectedly funny

throughout i knew he would have funny moments in the movie you know because it's johnny cage i knew he was gonna have his moment i didn't expect him to be funny all the way through but not awkwardly funny

not not annoyingly funny you know to the point where like oh my god this is not landing now did all the jokes land no but it fit the it fit the mood of the scenes and stuff like that it was well written and i think well let me take that back it wasn't perfectly written we'll get to that later but

carl urban he turned he turned crap into a salad and he because he's carl urban now he's the movie star of this movie

But the main character of this movie is Katana.

Katana's story is who we truly follow in this film.

And

Adeline Rudolph,

who plays Katana here,

awesome job as that character.

I love that story.

They flushed out that story,

her character,

so well throughout this film.

I didn't expect it going in.

I thought this was going to be a Johnny Cage movie,

you know,

but it wasn't.

It was a Katana movie,

and I'm not mad at it.

It was really,

really good.

Cheryl Khan,

who was played by,

I think his name,

Martin Ford,

I believe.

And you look at him on screen,

you're like,

boy,

they padded him up.

They really CGI'd that fella.

That is not CGI.

That is him.

He is really that big.

That dude.

that dude is humongous i mean he looks like a mountain that is a large human being and very intimidating but aside from that the the look the scale and in the design of that character yes it's intimidating but the acting was

even more intimidating it's not just your typical big heavy villain he is a

is a villain that is motivated you know a villain that is driven and i loved him and there's a lot of them in this film it isn't just two or three scenes you know he's in this movie a

lot and i man kudos to on that note because he could easily hit behind his little minions his little hitchman and all this other stuff no no you

he was in he was front and center and in all of the fights speaking of the fights uh the once again vast improvement from the first film we finally get a tournament and and that's what mortal kombat is at its core it's a tournament it's a fighting tournament game and

we've been waiting for this now the first the very first one in 1985 yeah it was a tournament and then it went

the the 2021 film no tournament at all and that was a major complaint about the film well not this go around we get the tournament and it it starts with the tournament literally the very first scene we're

a part of this tournament and it doesn't let up throughout the film all of the fight scenes are awesome but there's one in particular i'm not going to spoil it

Because even if I say who's in the fight scene,

it's going to spoil some elements of the story.

So I can't even do that.

All I'm going to say,

well,

I can say one of them,

and it's Liu Kang.

Liu Kang fight in his tournament fight was probably the best

Mortal Kombat fight I've ever seen on film.

Now,

I know that's not a tall hurdle to jump over,

but

I don't see...

any other fight matching that getting close to that fight

oh my god because not only was it just fist to cuffs it had emotion behind it told a story within that fight between every punch there was a story between every kick there was a story oh

my god that was an awesome scene awesome scene uh yeah the fighting here was top notch and with the exception of a few moments like towards the middle of the film

the movie moves pretty fast it doesn't drag except for maybe a couple of moments you know a scene or two where you felt like okay let's get let's get back to the fighting you know because like i said the the action was all throughout the tournament lasted throughout the film you

know one fight starts and once that one ends another fight start i mean it was back to back to back but then i guess they felt like wait this movie is going to be way too short you

We got to pause it here.

And they just,

it was a moment maybe for about 15 minutes in the movie where there was no tournament fighting.

Everybody went on side quests.

I was like,

how are you going on side quests?

And you got this tournament going on.

But we'll get into that in the negative section in a second.

But for the most part,

it moved pretty fast.

The movie wasn't long.

It didn't get bored.

It wasn't boring.

Those moments weren't boring.

those little side quests it just kind of threw off the flow a little bit but since i'm tipping tiptoeing into the negatives let's just jump all the way into it my negatives of the film uh

yeah like i said those moments in the middle of the movie where we stop with the tournament for no logical reason whatsoever and we just stop because the tournament is not determined by

uh any rhyme or reason it just starts back up you know once that first round ends so it didn't make sense which brings me to the plot holes there are so

many plot holes in this movie things that just just happen for no reason and things that just stop happening for no reason it may it it was all over the place

it was it was all over the place now the core story that's being told fine they they stayed on point with that they were laser focused on our main plot point but aside from that it was characters

just pop up out of the blue you know they they doing things that were established like in the first film that they couldn't do now they can do it just it just blew mama.

it was it was blowing my mind when i saw that now with that being said did it take me out of the movie no it didn't it didn't it didn't take me out of it i was expecting that i really was expecting that because the first film did that and i didn't have a problem with it in the first film so

why would i have a problem with it in this one um the writing even though the writing was was improved upon is still

bro some of some of the dialogue was a little like okay we get the point you know it it was it was a joke that ran throughout the film it worked the first time we didn't have to keep doing it i think it was done like three times and it involves johnny cage it

we didn't have to keep doing it was it was a it was the same joke it was okay you got it the first time it was

Anyways,

it was it was bad decision to keep running that through out the film.

And my final negative is that,

you know,

I celebrated

Carl Irvin's performance as Johnny Cage and

Andaline Rudolph as Katana

Martin Ford as Shaul Khan.

And you had a couple other performances that were pretty good as well.

But the characters that we followed in the...

first film one in particular once again not gonna spoil it no i'm gonna it's really not a spoiler so yeah uh cole young which is a character that nobody liked because he wasn't a part of the game they made him up for that movie and he was the main character i

didn't understand it but i went with it you know they had their reasons they they went they centered that whole movie

in 2021 on Cole Young,

his character.

his we followed him from when he got into the uh uh not in the tournament because that didn't start but when raiden found him and made him uh one of the defenders and all this here and his training and him defending his family and fighting for his family and embracing his power and all that towards the end cool

we followed the character whether you liked him or not we invested time in this character.

We get to the secret.

which picks up directly after the first film and cole young is in what two scenes in this movie it made those look

and he isn't the only one a lot of the characters suffer sonia blade blade she had nothing to do uh i mean uh jacks he was just in it just

just because he survived the first one and that's basically what this was the supporting characters in this movie that was in the first movie only appeared in this movie because they survived the the first one that was that was it there was no other reason to have those characters in here and they will waste the time and they really suffered there was zero development of those characters they didn't do anything different sonja blade did the exact same

thing she did in the first movie.

I guess that's a spoiler,

but it's really not.

She didn't do anything different from what she did in the first film,

just in less time.

That was it.

She wasn't in as many scenes as she was in the first film.

But yeah,

man,

they suffered mightily,

especially Cole Young.

And Louis Tan,

I like Louis Tan.

I think he's a good actor,

you know,

and definitely.

awesome martial artist if you watch woo assassins or netflix that he was on i think he was on uh cobra kai for a couple episodes as well he he's awesome man nothing nothing he did nothing in this movie with

all that being said i deeply enjoyed mortal kombat 2 i think i think it's probably you take nostalgia out of the equation it's the best mortal kombat

film we have gotten but if if i'm gonna account for nostalgia it still doesn't it still doesn't topple the 1995 because it's that's just that's just a classic as that's something special about that movie but

even either way you know it's definitely one or two and that's not saying much there's only four of these movies that exist as but so uh i did enjoy it i think it's a perfect

Pop

popcorn,

theatrical film is definitely something to go see in a theater.

I normally incorporate the first thought that I have walking out of the theater into my review,

and I'm going to reveal what that thought was right now.

This was my first thought when I walked out the theater.

I want to see this again.

It's not that,

oh,

I would go see this again.

No,

I'm going to go see this again.

Without a doubt,

this was this was.

so much fun in the theater enjoyed it immensely it is bloody gory uh action packed it's like a

90s film turned up to 11 and i'm not mad at it i give mortal kombat 2 a letter grade of a b minus yeah it was really good a super super duper improvement from

his predecessor i would like to know what did you

think of mortal combat 2 did you like it did you love it are you looking forward to part three because it was announced that a third film is in development we'll see when when that comes out but uh i want to know your thoughts email the show kbradiopodcast at gmail.com hit

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Everybody,

thank you for joining me for this review of Mortal Kombat 2.

Get over here.

Want you all to know that I love you.

Continue to love everyone.

And until we speak again,

you all be blessed and finish him.

Mortal Kombat II (2026) Movie Review

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