- Content: “Good Defeats Evil, but Otherwise Marred”
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What You Need To Know:
MORTAL KOMBAT II begins a little bit corny. However, the movie gets better as it goes along. A fun, comical performance by Karl Urban as Johnny Cage helps. Also, the story stresses defeating evil and restoring a kingdom that extols liberty. However, the movie still has some false religion. Also, the graphic violence seems slightly stronger than the first movie. Finally, MORTAL KOMBAT II has more foul language, including many “F” words and four strong profanities. So, it’s excessive and ultimately unacceptable.
Content:
Strong mixed pagan worldview with a moral premise about good defeating tyrannical evil to restore a kingdom that prizes liberty of its people, but there are false theological references to the “Elder Gods” who created the realms in the universe and where one character is the “god of thunder,” there’s an evil sorcerer who uses black magic, and there’s a magical amulet, but a hero at one point forms the Sign of the Cross with his hand when another hero is comically faced with a dangerous situation he may not survive (he does survive, though), and movie lightly promotes sacrifice for others
At least 71 obscenities includes at least 44 “f” words, two strong profanities mentioning the name of Jesus Christ, two GD profanities, one MG profanity, and two obscene gestures are sued for comic effect
Lots of very strong and strong fighting violence includes villain has a large hammer that he swings to hit and smash people, woman has two steel fans with blades that slash and stab people, man has a hat with blades that he uses to slash and carve up people, hat cuts two people into two, one character has top part of their head sliced off, man has a laser eye, another man uses balls of fire from his hands against people, swords are used to fight, lots of martial arts fighting occurs, there’s a rocket propelled grenade launcher that a man dodges when it’s fired but that still causes an explosion
No sex
No nudity
No alcohol use
No smoking or drugs; and,
Villain is greedy for power and merciless.
More Detail:
The movie opens in a fantasy realm, one of many, called Edenia. Young Princess Kitana lives in her father’s castle with him and her mother. However, her father’s kingdom is threatened by Shao Kahn, the ruthless ruler of another realm called Outworld. As the movie briefly explains, the “Elder Gods” decreed that the ruler or the people of one realm can only conquer another realm by defeating 10 champions from the defending realm in a series of fights called Mortal Kombat. Kahn has defeated nine of Edenia’s champions and the only one left to fight is Princess Kitana’s father, King Jerrod.
Sadly, Kahn defeats King Jerrod and kills him. He then takes Kitana’s mother as his Queen and adopts her as his stepdaughter.
Years later, Princess Kitana secretly pines for revenge against Kahn, especially since, in the meantime, he’s also killed her mother. Kitana has become friends with Jade, the female bodyguard that Kahn gave her.
To defeat Kahn, Princess Kitana gets help from the god of thunder, Lord Raiden, the protector of Earthrealm. She also gets help from a former Special Forces major and Mortal Kombat champion named Jax, and several other champions from the last movie. They try to recruit Johnny Cage, a former martial arts champion and down-on-his-luck action movie star on Earth. Unlike the other champions that Lord Raiden recruits for Kitana, however, Johnny doesn’t have any special powers. So, he refuses to help. Understandably, he doesn’t want to get killed.
So, the question becomes, how can they change his mind?
After the villain defeats the King in the opening, MORTAL KOMBAT II becomes a little bit corny and silly. However, the movie gets better as it goes along. Karl Urban (who played Dr. McCoy in the recent STAR TREK movies with Chris Pine) helps by providing some good humor and fun action sequences. Also, Josh Lawson as Kano, a reluctant hero from the first movie who’s brought back from the dead, adds some needed humor of his own. Even better, the plot has a strong moral premise where the goal is to defeat tyrannical evil and restore a lost kingdom that extols liberty.
MORTAL KOMBAT II seems to soften slightly the previous MORTAL KOMBAT movie’s occultism and dialogue about other gods. Also, the story stresses defeating evil and restoring a kingdom that extols liberty. However, the movie still has some overt false religion. Also, the graphic violence seems a little bit stronger. Finally, MORTAL KOMBAT II has more foul language, including many “F” words and four strong profanities.
So, MOVIEGUIDE® rates MORTAL KOMBAT II excessive and ultimately unacceptable for all moviegoers.
