Alas, Johnny Cage might have an autograph line if only he’d ever done some anime voice-work.

Previously on Mortal Kombat: I’m not a deeply invested fan — even “fan” might be an overstatement — but I’ve dabbled in the franchise. Back in my fast-food management days, after closing time a friend and I would hang out at a local 24-hour grocery that had a Mortal Kombat II cabinet by the front doors. Their overnight crew ignored us while we virtually whaled on each other for a while. I learned the moves for Liu Kang and Jax, just barely enough to get by, but I was never a serious threat. Years later I saw the first live-action MK film on VHS -– Paul W.S. Anderson’s primitive directorial debut that should’ve been irredeemably terrible. It bunny-hopped over the low bar of “better than most direct-to-video martial-arts schlock” for its time. I may have even laughed once or twice at intentionally funny parts. Obviously one game plus one B-movie doesn’t quite add up to MK geek-cred.

I didn’t bother with TV-commercial director Simon McQuoid’s 2021 Mortal Kombat reboot in its COVID-era release. Reviews weren’t encouraging, but audiences — not at the American box office, but somewhere out there — apparently plunked down just enough quarters to continue the game anyway. I would’ve ignored Mortal Kombat II just as hard if the trailers hadn’t thrown in a new, confusing element that begged the question: what is Karl Urban doing in there? Curiosity got the best of me. I even prepped for the occasion by watching the last film (streaming on Max), mostly regretted it, and committed to letting the sequel pummel me on the big screen, for better or worse.

Really, though: Karl Urban? Eomer? Billy Butcher? Skurge? Dr. McCoy? Judge Dredd? THAT Karl Urban?

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