2/5 stars

In Mortal Kombat II, action star turned reluctant hero Johnny Cage has a moment of self-reflection. Calling himself a dinosaur, he remarks that doing a bunch of karate poses “went out in the 90s”.

You may well feel the same about this latest take on the popular video game franchise, in which players fight to the (usually grisly) death. This tedium feels 30 years out of date.

Following two little-liked movies that came out in the 1990s, the 2021 film Mortal Kombat rebooted the franchise, with director Simon McQuoid steering it to a healthy US$84.4 million box office.

While the visual effects were naturally better than those of its predecessors, the laboured plot could not disguise the fact that it was little more than an excuse to spirit audiences from one ultra-violent duel to the next.