I’m Trevor with the Sasquatch Movie Minute with a look at MORTAL KOMBAT 2, directed by Simon McQuoid. Based on the eponymous video game, warriors from different space realms must battle each other in gruesome ways to save their home worlds.

2 out of 5

While an improvement over the 2021 reboot, mostly because #2 actually SHOWS Mortal Kombat, it kept diluting the weird B-movie fun into boring straight-faced action adventure. Every time Johnny Cage got to be a little macho and swear a lot or Kano got to make some ridiculous metaphor, the film succeeded. But poor Katana is stuck in that cliched, trauma-ridden, self-serious lead part that doesn’t allow her to show even a hint of character. And while Johnny Cage is an entertaining and inevitable add to the series, it doesn’t feel good that the Chinese lead actor of the first film was replaced by a white dude. The fights have some gamey gore, but they lost a lot of energy near the end.

Best Scene. The early scene showing the trailer for Johnny Cage’s movie is fantastic. It takes the ridiculousness of a 90s Jean-Claude Van Damme movie and pushes the fantasy just a little bit farther, to make it a meta parody. The actual Mortal Kombat fights were creative and got closest to hitting the shlocky fun vein.

Best Performance. Karl Urban isn’t allowed to have as much fun as he wants here; his washed-out actor is a bit depressed. But he is able to sell some truly horrendous dialogue as kinda funny. I liked Josh Lawson as the mouthy Kano, his brassy energy and spare use here was spot-on.

Fans of Mortal Kombat should enjoy this, for other audience members, you can do better!