Are you wondering if there are any Mortal Kombat II post-credits scenes? We’ll tell you right here: Nope, there aren’t!
Warning: Spoilers follow for Mortal Kombat II.
It’s showtime, Mortal Kombat fans, because Mortal Kombat II is now in theaters. The highly anticipated sequel to the 2021 reboot is entering its opening weekend with solid reviews for a video game adaptation, including an 8/10 from IGN’s Max Scoville, who wrote that “the bar for video game movie sequels isn’t very high, but this one not only clears the bar, it twirls it around like a bo staff.” Between excellent fight scenes, the introduction of fan favorite kharacters like Johnny Cage, Kitana, and Shao Kahn, and the film embracing more of the series’ campy tone and fantasy world-building, Mortal Kombat II looks to be a serious course correction after its predecessor’s mixed reception. That we get a real Mortal Kombat tournament this time around also helps!
But now that we’ve seen the film, we have some burning questions both about how this one plays out and what it all means for Mortal Kombat III, which is already confirmed to be in development. To that end, IGN spoke to director Simon McQuoid, writer Jeremy Slater, and stars Karl Urban and Joe Taslim to get their insights on if Shinnok will be the villain of Mortal Kombat III, what’s next for Cole Young and Jax, how the first film’s arcana concept became the franchise’s “midichlorians,” and much more.
Let’s delve into all the spoilery details of Mortal Kombat II…
Fulfilling the Promises of Mortal Kombat I
Mortal Kombat II shifts its focus away from franchise newcomer Cole Young (Lewis Tan), who was the lead of the last film. Instead, our two protagonists this time are Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) and Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), who are two of the most iconic heroes in the game series. They and a bunch of other returning faces like Cole, Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), and Jax (Mehcad Brooks) are assembled by Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) to defend Earthrealm against the forces of Shao Kahn’s Outworld through the Mortal Kombat tournament.
“The last movie ended with two promises,” screenwriter Slater told me. “That the tournament was coming, and that Johnny Cage would be one of the combatants. And beyond that, it was basically the sky was the limit.”
“There are so many moving parts and I love the creative exercise,” McQuoid told IGN. “I wanted to bring the feeling of the opening of the first film, but just go sort of maximalistically. I wanted to keep a sophisticated tone running through it, but just balance all those facets like the comedy and brutality.”
There are a lot of characters running around, but Johnny and Kitana stand out as the ones who receive the most development, with Johnny being a washed-out aging actor who needs to rediscover himself, and Kitana wanting to avenge her father’s death at the hands of Shao Kahn. When asked about the new leads, Slater said “MK1 sort of concluded the arcs and the storylines of characters like Cole and Sonya and Jax. We can give some other characters a chance in the spotlight. I think that approach really paid off.”
Those journeys conclude with Johnny obtaining brief supernatural powers that allow him to shatter the Amulet of Shinnok, an artifact crucial to the villains’ plans, and Kitana successfully killing Shao Kahn by carving his head into lunch meat. She subsequently takes up the throne of Outworld, seemingly to be a better ruler than her villainous adoptive father. Despite not sharing a lot of scenes, the movie parallels Johnny and Kitana’s arcs and intercuts between them to sell the pair as the film’s center. McQuoid elaborated on this approach, saying “I wanted [the movie] to have this emotional core. And I think that’s what both Kitana and Johnny’s stories are. And they are the two pillars of the movie. And they thread together in the end.” All well and good, but what about what’s coming next?
How the Arcana Concept From the First Movie Became the Franchise’s ‘Midichlorians’
One of the weirder aspects of the 2021 film was the introduction of “arcana,” which does not originate from the mythology of the games. Characters would develop dragon tattoos indicating they could gain powers, and could even obtain them from others by killing them in battle. This idea is never mentioned in the sequel, which Slater said was very intentional.
“The arcana was just something that the hardcore fans never responded to,” said the writer. “It kind of became our midichlorians to some extent, of explaining something that they didn’t necessarily want an explanation for. The goal coming in was that we don’t need to contradict anything in that first movie, we don’t need to retcon anything or say, ‘Oh wait, actually that’s not how it works,’ but we also don’t need to double down on things that they’re not enjoying.”
