Mortal Kombat II (2026) – Movie Review

TL;DR – A bloody fun time, if you don’t think about the plot at any point during the runtime.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Johnny Cage at a con booth.

Mortal Kombat II Review Introduction

I think it is safe to say that video game adaptations can be fraught. Indeed, even when we get a solid first entry, the follow-up can often flounder. Back during the height of COVID, we got this bombastic first entry in the Mortal Kombat series. However, it was missing something very important to the game: A Tournament. Well, they are back for round two, and they are ready to fix that omission.   

So, to set the scene, in the days since the first film, everyone realised that they are down one champion after Shao Kahn’s (Martyn Ford) pre-emptive strike. This somehow did not break the rules of the tournament. There are 8 billion humans in Earthrealm, and for some reason, the Gods chose washed-up Hollywood actor Johnny Cage (Karl Urban). He thinks he’s having an aneurysm, but reality hits hard when Johnny is zapped off Earth to face Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), Shao Kahn’s adopted daughter, whose blades cut deep.

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Movie Review – Ghost in the Shell (2017)

TL;DR – This is a difficult film to review as it excels in so many different ways, the music, visuals, and it really nails the aesthetics, but something is missing and it just felt more ‘safe’ than anything else.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Ghost in the Shell. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review

So it’s the future and the world has moved towards merging the biological and the machine with people adapting themselves with cybernetic implants. However, this is only augmentation, but now the supposed next step in human development is here, with a human brain inserted into a robot body, a ghost within the shell. Is this the next stage in human existence or simply a weapon being released into the world, a saviour or a curse? This is the set up for Ghost in the Shell a movie adaption of the original manga series of the same name. Well it has been a rocky launch for Ghost in the Shell, and we’ll get to that issue in a moment, but first I need to take a moment to explain my relationship with Ghost in the Shell before talking about its positives, and then we’ll get into what didn’t work.

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