When the original Mortal Kombat was in development, creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were both inspired by the eccentricities of Hong Kong action cinema and the over-the-top nature of American action films in the ‘90s. It’s impossible to look at the legacy of MK and not see shades of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Bloodsport or Chang Cheh’s Five Deadly Venoms, in both the emphasis on martial arts as well as the overwhelming unseriousness of the proceedings. Throughout its over 30-year lifespan, the franchise has always understood that despite the high stakes and graphic bloodshed, it has about the same level of solemnity as a lethal episode of Monday Night Raw.
And yet, for some reason, 2021’s Mortal Kombat attempted to abandon the cheesiness (perhaps in an effort to run away from the reception of the previous ‘90s live-action films) in what felt like an effort to recapture the “grounded” nature of 2010s blockbusters. The result was a movie that, despite bearing a passing resemblance to Mortal Kombat, felt incompatible with the inherent cartoonishness of the source material. Now, five years later, it’s as if director Simon McQuoid (and new screenwriter Jeremy Slater) went all the way back to the drawing board for Mortal Kombat 2, a movie that, despite flaws that could only arise from a fighting game adaptation, embraces the camp and brutality of the series wholeheartedly.
