Movie Review Highlights Bundle (2026) #1

 

In this collection of review highlights, we’ll explore the year 2026 where a classic video game franchise is given another opportunity to redeem itself on the big screen in addition to other movie reviews to come...

1. Mortal Kombat II - 7/10  (Mercy Rating)

Minor Positives:

-Fan Service

1. Ed Boon cameo

2. Ed Boon's "Get Over Here!" Voice Over For Scorpion

3. New Line Cinema Easter Egg

4. Visual Easter Egg

Johnny Cage looking dazed at the end of the fight against Kitana as Shao Khan orders her to "finish him" was a fun callback to the fight end animation from the video games where the winner is allowed to perform a finishing move of their choice on the loser's dazed body. 

5. Visual Easter Egg

Some of the settings match the aesthetics of the video games with one in particular being a solid recreation of the famous Dead Pool acid pit stage. Even the camera work during the two fighters lining up in that setting matched the imagery of playing in the actual game.

6. There are a few cool displays of character powers from the games shown throughout the movie such as Kitana's utilization of the steel fans, Shao Kahn’s shoulder charge, Kung Lao's mastery of the razor-rimmed hat, Johnny Cage's shadow kick, and Noob Saibot’s shadow fusion. 

-Solid Character Debut

1. Johnny Cage

I felt that Johnny Cage was done justice enough with both the performance by Karl Urban and the fact that they gave him his classic arc of finding his path from being a washed up action star to becoming a protector of Earthrealm. Overall, this was a satisfying adaptation although I could've used a bit more of his traditional comedic elements such as his movie and movie business related references while reacting to the crazy fantastic world around him. 

-Entertaining Character

1. Johnny Cage

2. Kano

-Overall Solid Action

1. Lu Kang vs Revenant Kung Lao was actually kinda cool with the fight choreography and utilization of Kung Lao's razor-rimmed hat. It's certainly better than any of the fight scenes that we had in the previous entry although not as memorable as anything from the original 1995 movie. 

2. The other fight scenes are a bit hit or miss but there is a nice helping of gory finishing moves to go around with a few solid displays of super powers. 

-Set Design

-World Building

1. The Tarkatan village scene had a nice sense of adventure and world building within the design of the setting. Getting to see other Tarkatan people beyond just Baraka alongside their homes with a bit of their culture on display was a delightful insert that I appreciated. For a brief moment there, it really did feel like we were getting the MK movie that I've been asking for all these years in terms of being an expansive lore building adventure with awesome battles woven throughout..for a brief moment. This is the one point in the entire movie where I felt they were truly making a good effort to show the expansive world of Mortal Kombat in a manner that felt visually detailed with enough time to soak in enough of it before jumping into the next fight. 

Major Positives:

N/A

Minor Negatives:

-Questionable Character Design 

1. Noob Sabot

I was really excited when they announced that Noob Saibot would be in this movie considering that he's one of my favorite characters from the video games. I was especially eager to see what his design would be as the character has had some pretty fantastic aesthetics throughout the history of the franchise. Unfortunately, I felt that this movie, although honors the essentials of the character's visuals, went in a much more cheap and generic look to the outfit and face. It's not bad...it just looks like a canon fodder background henchman versus a shadow possessing, supernaturally twisted version of Bi-Han that was resurrected by demonic-like sorcery. I think they slightly dropped the ball on this design, but at least it does seem like they somewhat tried. 

2. Shao Khan

This one's a bit tricky because I think they did an exceptional job in actually having Shao Khan look relatively huge and imposing as he should. However, as intimidating as he appears, his movements during fight scenes look as if the actor is uncomfortable wearing a giant metal helmet that’s weighing down on both his neck and shoulders. I'm also a little mixd on the helmet design itself as the games have him sporting an iconic skull mask, this version looks a little more like a messy metallic smiling face. It's kinda close but not exactly. 

-Shaky Production Values

1. Although, certainly an improvement from the previous movie, there's still a few spots where the CGI and green screen work is pretty obvious. 

-Occasionally Weak Visual Direction

1. Some of the wire work flipping around can be a bit excessive during the action scenes. 

-Underwhelming Fight Scene

1. Johnny Cage Vs. Kitana

2. Johnny Cage Vs. Baraka

Although I do like that Johnny does have something of an arc in the movie, and the moment where he flips on the shades with a boost of confidence to fight Baraka was classic, the fight itself gets pretty silly. The amount of excessive flipping and arm swinging that takes place during the second half of this fight becomes comical to the point of being cringeworthy. 

3. Scorpion, Johnny Cage, and Kano Vs. Noob Saibot

I was eager to finally see one of my favorite MK characters (Noob Saibot) get a big budget live action adaptation. Considering what this power set is, I was particularly excited to experience what a fight scene would be like with Noob utilizing his shadow clone and how the movie would power scale him higher than his previous appearance as Subzero. Unfortunately, I never felt as though they took advantage of the creative cinematic opportunities that they had with showing him using his shadow powers in perfect harmony against our heroes. As a matter of fact, I never felt as though Noob Saibot was remotely as threatening as Subzero in combat which is a big problem for me. 

-Hit Or Miss Comedy

1. As occasionally funny as Kano and Jonny Cage are throughout the movie, there's also some attempts at jokes that didn't quite land for me. 

-Weak Performances

-Slightly Underwhelming Character Debut

1. Sindel

-Underwhelming Character Debut

1. Noob Saibot

For a character who played a major antagonist in the previous movie with a strong enough dramatic connection to some of the characters, Bi-Han's resurrection and transformation into Noob Saibot felt absurdly rushed and anti-climactic. No sense of intriguing supernatural corruption by Quan Chi's sorcery being addressed or Bi-Han's mindset regarding this new form being thoughtfully explored. Bi-Han just becomes Noob Saibot within what feels like seconds and now we move onto a fight scene where he doesn't get to actually hurt anyone substantially and is instead defeated by Scorpion yet again with the help of Johnny and Kano. It's absolutely lame especially considering how much admirable work went into Subzero's threat presence in the previous movie. 

2. Quan Chi

A powerful dark sorcerer with ties to both Shang Tsung and Shinnock and the one responsible for Subzero's dark future amongst other major story threads in the video games. In this movie, he resurrects a few characters to fight for Shao Kahn's cause and that's really as much as you get from here. He's a necromancer that's kinda of a joke ultimately. His design is...not the worst but not that great either. 

-Underwhelming Conclusion To A Character

1. Lu Kang 

-Underwhelming Villain

1. Shao Kahn

As much as they try to make Shao Kahn come across as intimidating and powerful (killing off multiple characters on the hero roster), I just never found him to be all that interesting. In all fairness, I never found him to be all that great in the games either beyond just being a hilariously prideful and frustrating to fight bully of a final boss. The movie does nothing to really elevate him above your generic forgettable "big world conquering emperor" archetype. 

-Questionably Handled Adaptation Of The Source Material

1. Sindel

They made Sindel feel dramatically weak relying entirely on her screams to fight like some comic book mutant with a one trick pony ability. Whereas the video game's iteration is a super powerful combat-hardened queen who can take on some of the best warriors in MK's roster. She relies on her ultrasonic screams but also her magical hair capabilities that act as a whip or bind all mixing within her combat style. The fact that Sonya was able to defeat her the way that she did just felt lame and a questionable use of Sindel altogether. It also doesn't help that they never try to build her up as the powerhouse queen of a nation that she should be and her significant place in the lore. Instead, she's as canon fodder as a Shao Kahn henchman being thrown at our heroes to fight. It's pretty sad. 

2. Baraka 

Baraka becoming a fan of Johnny Cage is a bizarre yet semi inspired choice for what it does for Johnny’s character charm an progression. However, I think it’s a slightly poor creative decision for Baraka being the leader of this vicious warrior tribe of which we’re traditionally meant to take seriously. I think this is just an artistic liberty choice that’ll take a bit of getting used to for me personally. The character still feels like the aggressive animalistic savage that I like from the source material, but I think they inserted perhaps a bit too much levity in him here. There's even a bit where, during their fight, Johnny Cage has him waiving his arms around like a complete buffoon which boarded on cringeworthy for that character to do. 

-Forgettable

-Below Expectations

1. Admittedly, despite the trailers looking questionable, there was a lot of hype surrounding this movie supposedly being actually worthwhile. You also had the fact that they had more than enough time to take the criticisms of the previous movie to learn their lesson and dish out something amazing. And...it wasn't. It was just okay at best. 

Major Negatives: 

-Terrible Fight Scene

1. Sonya Blade vs Sindel

-Terrible Performance

1. Tadanobu Asano

This is one of those unfortunate situations where an actor's performance over a character is so distracting that it causes me to have a mostly negative outlook on the character itself. No offense to the actor as I'm sure he's put in much better work in other titles, but I simply just don't find him to be a good fit for the god of thunder and protector of Earthrealm. There's never any sense of divine authority of strong presence with his scenes. He actually feels more like just another combatant in the tournament that happens to have impressive lightning powers as opposed to an eternal god leading the charge against the evil invading forces. 

-Terrible Dialogue 

-Questionable Storytelling Elements

1. Quan Chi resurrects Kano's corpse to inquire about Shinnok's amulet only to find out that Kano had it in his pocket the entire time. This was pretty ridiculous especially considering the significance of that amulet to Quan Chi's history. 

2. The way Kung Lao was able to just pop up and pull a sneak attack on Raiden (god of thunder by the way) cutting his throat felt absurd. Then to have him just standing there with a giant beam of light shooting out of his neck eventually leading to him floating in a laying position not being able to speak much just felt like the most bizarre way to take Raiden out of commission. 

3. Shao Kahn stabbing Lu Kang for Lu to just randomly have a revelation that he has to save Kung Lao before turning into fire and flying away felt completely out of left field. 

-Disorderly Storytelling Direction

-Problematically Fast Pacing

1. The story pacing is way too fast not allowing scenes and concepts to breathe and build up but instead constantly rushing over to the next fight scene.

-Lacking In Dramatic Impact

-Monumentally Wasted Potential