At one level you know exactly what to expect when you select a movie adapting a video game. Any film worth its production costs needs to bring general audiences into its fantasy world, the director and writers need to then re-build that world, establish heroes, fight battles, provide over-the-top action and effects, and the hero(es) must achieve some kind of goal. The stakes are high, often the fate of the entire world. And that rarely leaves room for character development. Past entries include Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, Resident Evil, Warcraft, Monster Hunter, Prince of Persia, Rampage, Sonic the Hedgehog, and a slew of Pokémon movies, and they go back decades to the original concept film Tron, which had a video game at its center that players didn’t get to play until after the movie. Lesser rated entries include movies like Hitman, Max Payne, Doom, Street Fighter, and In the Name of the King.
The 2021 big-budget release Mortal Kombat found the sweet spot that bridged the cool parts of the game and the expectations of modern action movie fans. Both a remake and a reboot and adaptation of a series of martial arts fantasy games going back to 1992, at its best it leaned into Asian action movie culture, but it arrived in the shadow of bigger studio projects Raya and the Last Dragon, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins.
If you loved the 2021 movie you’re in luck. The sequel, Mortal Kombat II, looks like it could be even better, starring Karl Urban (Star Trek, Xena, Riddick, The Lord of the Rings, Almost Human, Doom, Bourne, Red, Dredd) as the game’s hot shot Johnny Cage, Adeline Rudolph (Resident Evil, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Riverdale) as Kitana, and Ana Thu Nguyen as Sindel, with returning leads Jessica McNamee, Lewis Tan, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Josh Lawson, Damon Herriman, and the great Joe Taslim and Hiroyuki Sanada. Complete with the unforgettable game music, here’s a look at the new trailer for Mortal Kombat II:
In case you missed it, here’s last year’s trailer for the movie (with a different release date):
The world of Mortal Kombat includes the type of dense lore like that behind Warcraft and Assassin’s Creed–it’s layered and near impossible to translate to a two-hour movie. It follows human warriors who carry a special tattoo that identifies them as able to compete at a galactic level with warriors of other realms. In the first movie the heroes of the tale are street fighter Cole Young, played by Lewis Tan from Wu Assassins, and Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, who has worked with “marked” warrior Jax Briggs (Supergirl’s Mehcad Brooks)–a cyborg–to research how to defend Earth from a sorcerer known to cheat at Mortal Kombat called Shang Tsung, played by Chin Han (Skyscraper, Captain America: The Winter Soldier). In a lair called Raiden’s Temple, the marked heroes learned their “arcana”–an exclusive superpower that will help them in battle.
Yes, the 2021 Mortal Kombat came in last place against the year’s big Asian character movies, but it explored new ground for its genre overall. It’s better than Monster Hunter and the Resident Evil movies, as well as the original 1995 version, and at times it’s as good at adapting its video game fantasy world as Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, and Warcraft.
Simon McQuoid returns as director with a musical score by Benjamin Wallfisch (Blade Runner 2049, Shazam!). Look for Mortal Kombat II in theaters May 8, 2026.
C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg
