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Mortal Kombat II Review: Karl Urban Improves on the Sequel

Mortal Kombat II, with Karl Urban as Johnny Cage, elevates the franchise beyond its predecessor. This review explores how the film delivers the right kind of over-the-top action and improved storytelling.

Consequence·May 6, 2026·via Consequence

Mortal Kombat II Review: Karl Urban Improves on the Sequel

Liz Shannon Miller May 6, 2026 | 12:00 PM

Mortal Kombat II is Hollywood’s second sequel to a Mortal Kombat movie. It is, however, the first of its name, as the sequel to the 1995 Paul W.S. Anderson movie was entitled Mortal Kombat Annihilation . In terms of quality, Annihilation stands as arguably the worst video game adaptation of all time , so it would have been quite a feat for this movie to be even worse. Fortunately for everyone involved, it surpasses that very low bar, blending its fantasy martial arts nonsense with a few fun characters and plenty of bloody fatalities.

It also, shockingly , actually features its characters fighting in a martial arts tournament to the death . Not that a video game adaptation needs to demonstrate extreme fealty to the premise of the source material, but there’s really not much narrative thrust to the Mortal Kombat franchise beyond “dudes fighting each other in a martial arts tournament,” so it does give this movie some helpful focus, at least in the first two acts.

The reason Mortal Kombat II is able to focus on a martial arts tournament is that the previous movie was entirely setup for this moment, establishing the bulk of the characters as well as director Simon McQuoid’s ultra-bloody approach. That movie’s loss is this movie’s gain, especially as the sequel also makes some notable upgrades, including dispatching a weak link or two from the first movie, introducing a few new players, and reviving anyone who died before who feels worth saving.

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Things begin with a flashback to the day when the young Princess Kitana (eventually played by Adeline Rudolph as an adult) watched her father die in the final round of a Mortal Kombat between her world and skull-helmeted warlord Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford)’s terrifying Outworld. Twenty years later, Shao Kahn has claimed Kitana as his daughter, and she’s one of the five Outworld warriors who will be competing against Earthrealm in this final battle to determine Earth’s fate.

Then it’s back to Earth, where we get to meet Johnny Cage ( Karl Urban ), the movie’s other big new character. Johnny’s days of action stardom are long behind him, so when Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) and the other champions let him know “hey, you’ve been recruited to fight in a fantasy martial arts tournament,” his response is a hard pass. Too bad whatever mystical forces are behind Mortal Kombat care as much about consent as they about proper spelling!

This is very much a direct sequel to the previous movie, in a way where pre-established characters get re-introduced with quick asides like, “Oh yeah, that’s Jax, he used to be in the military and he has robot arms.” All the real exposition is focused on stuff like explaining various magical objects and the rules of the tournament, such as they are.

A major part of the plot, in between rounds of fighting, concerns a magical amulet that could grant immortality to Shao Kahn, which would of course be bad news for the good guys. I’m no fantasy martial arts lawyer, but it seems like being immortal should disqualify you from participating in a tournament known as Mortal Kombat. Mortality is the whole point!

However, the more you consider issues like that, the faster you’ll get tangled in some of this movie’s murkier logic, which leaves itself way too open to narrative nitpicking. Most of that murky logic, though, is in service to its most crowd-pleasing moments. And nitpicking would distract from what does make this movie really enjoyable, especially its two standout performances.

To be blunt about it, Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage is a downright riot . Introduced first through a clip from his 1996-era action filmography, Urban leans hard into his natural swagger as well as a preening selfishness that fits Johnny’s washed-up star persona. It’s more than a little strange that despite 30 years passing, Johnny Cage hasn’t aged a minute since the 1990s, but maybe he also has access to Tom Cruise’s secret vat of youth juice. Or maybe it’s the frosted tips.

Urban’s comedy chops help generate some of Mortal Kombat II ‘s funniest moments. Pretty much all of the other funny moments can be attributed to Josh Lawson as Kano, who pretty much stole the first movie (despite dying at the end); his irreverent attitude instantly adds a jolt of life to the heavier sequences set in Shao Kahn’s court.

Some of the comedy can feel out of place at times, especially when the script plays with pop culture references — it’s amusing but a bit strange to watch Urban, a The Two Towers / Return of the King alumnus, quote The Lord of the Rings . (He also has some bitchy things to say about John Wick .) At the end of the day, though, one does not go to see a Mortal Kombat movie for the jokes. One goes to see a Mortal Kombat movie for the mortal kombat — and there is no shortage of that here.

Yes, this movie revives so many characters with such frequency that the concept of death seems to lose all meaning (even when some of those deaths look pretty permanent). However, if this means that the previously deceased Kung Lao (Max Huang) — aka “the guy with the chainsaw hat from the first movie” — can come back, no complaints, because a guy with a chainsaw hat really is a joy to behold in this context.

Plus, now that this is an actual martial arts tournament, McQuoid can lean harder on calling back to the games than he did in the first movie, more than once staging some fight scenes to emulate the classic sidescroller framing from the arcade era. Beyond the standout weaponry (Kitana has murder fans!), there’s some top-tier fight choreography in playf, including a battle between Johnny Cage and the terrifying Baraka (CJ Bloomfield) that features some solid character beats. Also, that 1996-era clip mentioned above is a hilarious parody of terrible direct-to-video-level action; one can only imagine how much joy the stunt team took in putting that together.

Although this has a pretty large ensemble, Kitana and Johnny Cage’s journeys get the emphasis, meaning that most of the other characters are left feeling like afterthoughts. As Sonya Blade, Jessica McNamee doesn’t get much to do, largely reacting to the men around her while making me think, approximately once every two minutes, “Are we sure that’s not Leslie Bibb ?”

Other players, like Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), Shang Tsung (Chin Han), and the aforementioned robot-armed Jax (Mehcad Brooks), are left largely on the sidelines. And somehow, the movie finds a way to bring back both Bi-Han/Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) and Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada), probably because someone in development said “It doesn’t count as Mortal Kombat if they’re not there.” It’s awkward in the execution, yet it’s also a sign that the movie’s focus was on giving the people what they want.

Mortal Kombat II ends with a pretty clear set-up for a third movie, which is already in development, and fingers crossed it’ll do what this movie did: Improve on what came before, take the piss out of itself whenever possible, and never forget that at the end of the day, the reason people want to watch movies like this in the first place. It might be nice if it aimed slightly higher. But as anyone who’s ever held a controller or joystick knows, even if you don’t achieve “flawless victory,” you can still have a lot of fun.

Mortal Kombat II kick-punches into theaters on May 8th, 2026. Check out the latest trailer below.