Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
(L-R) JESSICA MCNAMEE as Sonya Blade, TADANOBU ASANO as Lord Raiden, and LEWIS TAN as Cole Young in New Line Cinema’s “Mortal Kombat II,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Copyright: © 2026 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved
By Dave Jones: Columnist
Video game movies have always had their highs and lows; the Mortal Kombat franchise is no exception. Opinion is still divided on the original 1995 Mortal Kombat motion picture to this day, with fans either lauding its ridiculousness or condemning it. The second movie for the new generation – Mortal Kombat II – released in 2026, so was it a fatality for the series, or did it yell “get over here”?
The first Mortal Kombat game caused a scandal among gamers and parents alike when it hit North American arcades back in 1992; it was violent to the point of comedy, though of course many were worried about the implications. These days, it’s become the series’ tongue-in-cheek hallmark; however, that’s not all that sets it apart from the crowd.
Mortal Kombat is a fighting game series with a story, which makes it uniquely-placed as one of the few of its kind that can hold a movie on that merit alone. The premise is simple: instead of warring armies controlling dimensions, a fighting tournament – Mortal Kombat – is staged to decide the victor (and ruler) of the worlds.
Earthrealm is ours, and it’s prime real estate for interdimensional warlords. There’s much more to it than that, of course; each Kombatant has their own backstories, vendettas and connections to the others.
These colourful characters really make things interesting and of course, they’re the focus of the movies, too. Mortal Kombat I, the latest big screen interpretation, invaded box offices in 2021 with a new main focus created just for the film – Cole Young. It received middling reviews with critics, but the public were far more generous.
The sequel (which is unsurprisingly titled Mortal Kombat II) took a similar approach, but threw in a curveball. Instead of bringing in a brand new character as the main male focus, it saw the return of fan favourite Kombatant Johnny Cage – portrayed by seasoned fantasy veteran Karl Urban – although as you might have guessed from the casting, he’s not the Cage you might remember.
“Karl’s very good at improv and added lines like, ‘Not the face,’ and ‘I got Saturn for the best fight,’ recalled Simon McQuoid.”
Traditionally, Johnny is a popular action movie celebrity who earned his place in the Mortal Kombat tournament through his martial arts. This character is based on an older, washed-up actor who was once a champion martial artist in his youth, but began to rely on his stuntmen onscreen. However, the powers-that-be who arrange Mortal Kombat – the Elder Gods – haven’t overlooked him, and he’s reluctantly summoned as a fighter to represent Earthrealm.
Copyright: © 2026 Eric Charbonneau
Fans of The Boys will recognise Urban as the gravel-voiced cockney Billy Butcher, but not even that role could prepare him for the strain of entering the Mortal Kombat tournament; he found the transition almost as difficult as the fictional character did. He told ScifiNow in 2026, “Coming into Mortal Kombat II was, hands down, the most challenging physical undertaking that I’ve ever embarked on when it comes to a production. The skill set required was definitely an exponential learning curve that I have never encountered.” It wasn’t just the physical pressure of the role, either. “When I got cast, I told my two sons (who actually play the game and which was my first introduction to the world of Mortal Kombat) and they were like, ‘It’s a big fan base, don’t f*** it up,” he elaborated. “So right from the get-go, from my own family, I felt the pressure!”
The story continues directly from Mortal Kombat I, with the fighters battling to protect the dimension (in this case, from the powerful warlord, Shao Kahn) and introduces the movie’s main female lead – and she’s a strong one, both literally and figuratively.
Kitana – played by Adeline Rudolph – is a fan-wielding ninja princess who Shao Kahn ‘adopted’ (or more accurately, claimed) after he performed a fatality on her father and seized the realm of Edenia. However, she’s far from a damsel in distress, and has been plotting against the invader under his nose with the help of Earthrealm’s kombatants and their leader, Raiden.
Continued below…
Copyright: © 2025 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: Adeline Rudolph as “Kitana” in New Line Cinema’s “Mortal Kombat II,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
“The film moves with a kind of disciplined ferocity, shaping its battles into moments of ritual rather than spectacle.”
Rudolph plays her role well, especially since she didn’t play the MK franchise when it first released. She told Esquire in 2026, “It’s so funny. I didn’t game growing up. It didn’t exist in our household. But, while I can’t pinpoint when I came across Mortal Kombat, it’s one of those things that if you grew up in the ’90s, there’s no way you haven’t heard of Mortal Kombat. When [the movie] came across my desk, I wasn’t like, ‘What is this?’ It was, ‘No way.’ It was something I had, in some way, been familiar with. My fiancé grew up playing Mortal Kombat, and when I booked this, he lost it. He was so excited. Like, ‘She was my crush growing up!’”
From there, the character web stretches to include a host of characters: Scorpion returns to haunt his old nemesis, Lui Kang must face his past in the form of his resurrected monk ‘brother’ while Cage provides a discovery of finding his life’s purpose.
There’s even a particularly enjoyable comic relief performance from the lewd, rude and foul-mouthed mercenary Kano (played convincingly by Josh Lawson).
Mortal Kombat II offers a story that newcomers to the franchise can follow, although it resonantes especially well with fans of the franchise, who will enjoy the over-the-top violence, fatalities and references to the huge collection of video games. The real joy comes from seeing those characters and their signature fighting moves come to life on the big screen, whether it’s Shao Kahn’s green-energy shoulder charge, Johnny Cage’s eye-watering ‘package check’ (just ask Baraka) or of course, Scorpion’s iconic “Get Over Here” harpoon. Whether you’re a fan of the MK series or not, one thing’s for sure: Mortal Kombat II will deliver a precise and exaggerated fatality to your boredom… and you may just find yourself reaching for the video game controller to prove to yourself that you’ve still got it.
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