20 Recent Movie Sequels We Were ALL Wrong About

9. Mortal Kombat II

2021's Mortal Kombat was a frustrating mixed bag which mostly delivered the expected gory kills, though faltered with its emphasis on a resoundingly lame audience insert character, Cole Young (Lewis Tan), who was near-universally despised by fans of the video games.

The film's missteps certainly tempered expectations for the recent sequel, then, which the marketing suggested to be an incremental improvement over its predecessor at best.

Yet Mortal Kombat II was a massive step up from the 2021 film, retaining the dumb sense of fun fans expect while amping up the gory action, reducing Cole's role to a mere cameo, milking Karl Urban's turn as Johnny Cage for every drop, and even actually featuring the titular tournament this time around.

Bewilderingly, though, despite being a significant improvement, this sequel performed middlingly at the box office, putting the status of a planned third film very much in doubt.