The transition from the narrative focus of 2021’s Mortal Kombat to its sequel is nothing short of a franchise fatality performed on its own setup. By disposing of Cole Young — the original audience surrogate — so ruthlessly at the hands of Martyn Ford’s towering Shao Kahn, the film effectively signals that the training wheels are off. It’s a bold, albeit polarizing, subversion of expectations: killing the protagonist within the first act is a classic Poochie-died-on-the-way-to-his-home-planet move, but here it serves as a visceral promise that no one is safe.

Directed by Simon McQuoid and written by Jeremy Slater, this time the movie has course corrected to have the hero be Johnny Cage (Karl Urban), a washed-up martial arts actor recruited by the thunder god Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) to join a series of fighters for Earth, including Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), a reborn and reformed Kano (Josh Lawson), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) and Jax (Mehcad Brooks) against the forces of Shao Khan’s Outworld army, which has Edenian princess Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), her mother Queen Sindel (Ana Thu Nguyen), a reborn Kung Kao (Max Huang) and Jade (Tati Gabrielle).

Yes, it turns out that Earth is about to lose to Outworld. Plus, Shao Khan hedges his bets with the aid of sorcerer Quan Chi (Damon Herriman) and Shang Tsung (Chin Han), who have sliced Raiden’s throat and taken his power to give Shao Khan immortal power. 

Somewhere in the middle of all this, Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada) has learned how to transform Hell into his own paradise, getting past his anger at Bi-Han/Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim), until he learns that he’s still kind of alive and has also split into a second fighter, Noob Saibot. Then there’s Baraka (CJ Bloomfield) and the Tarkatans, who are the only ones who can get into the castle.

If you played the games — and yes, I have and still do — you’re going to find so much to love, like actual energy bars showing up at one point and a devotion to gory fatalities. I mean, Ed Boon shows up twice, once as a bartender, and his voice says Scorpion’s “Get over here!” It’s fan service, but why else would they make this movie?

That makes it kind of hard to rate. If you’re someone just walking in, I guess there’s entertainment here, particularly if you like martial arts movies. If you’re someone who knows how to pull off an animality or a friendship, you’re probably going to like it way better than the last one. Then again, nothing has ever been better than the original, but such is life. Or death, in the case of Mortal Kombat.

TL: DR Johnny Cage was awesome, a human brain pops out and lots of fingers get sliced off. I cheered. Here’s to Nightwolf and Stryker being in the next one.