The Mortal Kombat 2 movie comes out Friday May 8, and early reviews have begun emerging from the portal. Does the sequel right the wrongs of the first film, which oddly didn’t even feature a Mortal Kombat tournament? Is Karl Urban an improvement over… uh, whoever that main guy was in the first movie? Does someone else get cut in half lengthwise by a hat?
Let’s find out. Not by going to the movie itself—I unfortunately couldn’t make it to a press screening—but by seeing what some other outlets thought of the sequel. Early opinions seem pretty mixed, with some reviewers liking all the action but others unhappy to find a distinct lack of anything but action.
On the plus side, this easily feels like a film where the audience scores will wind up much higher than critics scores, so even if there are some negative reviews out there, Mortal Kombat fans might still wind up having a fine time.
Awarding it a score of 3/5, Jordan Farley says the sequel “lands some killer blows” but is “far from a flawless victory.” Farley says MK 2 is a step up from 2021’s Mortal Kombat—though that’s a pretty low bar to hurdle. Karl Urban as Johnny Cage “has undergone a Deadpool personality transplant, with the character riffing on everything from Squid Game and Harry Potter to Big Trouble in Little China and The Lord of the Rings,” making the sequel more fun than “its strangely self-serious predecessor.”
Max Scoville says the sequel “doesn’t waste any time delivering on everything the first film took time setting up.” While MK 2 “might not be Oscar-caliber cinema,” Scoville says, “it’s big and loud and gruesome and not afraid to have fun.” The sequel “fully understands that its appeal lies in the thrill of seeing characters tear each other apart, not so much their motivations for doing so.”
Rhiannon Bevan says MK 2 is “great Kitana movie, and a bad Johnny Cage movie,” saying Karl Urban isn’t miscast but “misused,” with his characterization “so egregiously boring at times that it gives Urban little to work with.” Fortunately, “Mortal Kombat 2 has a deep respect for the worlds created in the games, and uses them as a starting point to give us the best scenes in the film, whenever we’re in Outworld.”
MK2 brings “much more of the recent games’ lore and aesthetic with them while keeping the strong focus on the fight sequences and an earnest take on the material,” says Bill Bria. Calling it “a peanut butter and chocolate mix of a film,” Bria says it’s “easily one of the biggest surprises of the year,” and “while not every little thing in the film works, it’s honestly a little astonishing how much of it does.”
Polygon: “Extremely forgettable”
Jake Kleinman calls MK 2 a “desperate apology to angry fans” who didn’t like the tournament-less 2021 Mortal Kombat, and says “calling it a movie is actually pretty generous: It feels more like a series of well-choreographed fight scenes set against meticulously crafted backdrops” with a story that feels like “a video game cutscene.” Ultimately, MK2 “is an extremely forgettable movie.”
Jacob Oller calls Urban’s version of Johnny Cage “humorless” and says the film “combines direct-to-video schlock with blockbuster boredom.” Mortal Kombat 2 is “simply an excuse to pit the fighters against one another in different combinations and justify a third film where those who died in ridiculously gory ways can be snagged from hell (Netherrealm) to cash another paycheck.”
“The bar is in hell for video game movies, huh?” asks Kristy Puchko. MK2 is “another ugly, nonsensical mess,” and is “another example of good trailer, bad movie.” Karl Urban’s Cage feels “wedged in” instead of the focus of the film, and as his “clichéd plot line demands he become a selfless, brave hero, he becomes more grave and less giggle-inducing.”
Here’s a few more, continuing what looks like a pretty mixed response.
Vulture, 3/10: “Depressingly rizzless.”
Movie Web, 3.5/5: “Does not disappoint.”
Dread Central, 2.5/5: “Same fight, different characters.”
Screen Crush: “Definitely not a flawless victory.”
The Hollywood Reporter: “A tacky sequel strictly for the fans.”