Author: TechGeeks

I still remember the first time I properly got into Mortal Kombat. Like many people from my generation, I had obviously seen the characters before. Scorpion yelling “Get over here!”, Sub-Zero freezing people into ice cubes, Raiden looking like a thunder god who somehow still manages to disappear whenever the plot needs him most. Mortal Kombat was always around. But it wasn’t until the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot game that I truly became invested in the franchise. That game was special because it balanced everything perfectly. It had the gore, the ridiculousness, the iconic rivalries, but it also had a surprisingly engaging story that tied together the first three games in a way even casual players could follow. It made characters like Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Kitana, Raiden, and Johnny Cage actually feel important beyond just being arcade fighters.

That’s probably why the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie disappointed me so much. It felt like a film that wanted to introduce a brand-new guy nobody asked for while pushing actual fan-favorite characters into the background. The fights were decent, sure, but the emotional core was missing. So when Mortal Kombat 2 was announced, I genuinely had hope. This looked like the correction fans were asking for. More tournament action, more classic characters, more lore, more violence, and finally, Johnny Cage entering the mix. On paper, this should have been the movie that finally nailed Mortal Kombat.

And yet somehow, after two hours of severed limbs, flying blood, fan-service moments, and enough slow-motion fatalities to traumatize a small village, I still walked out unsatisfied.

Spoiler Warning: This review contains major spoilers for Mortal Kombat 2, including story details, character arcs, fights, and fatalities.

The biggest problem with Mortal Kombat 2 is, honestly, very simple. This movie has way too much story for a two-hour runtime. Instead of simplifying things or splitting the film into multiple parts, it just speedruns through everything like somebody accidentally hit fast-forward on the lore. It’s like trying to fit a liquid-cooled gaming rig into a lunchbox. Something is obviously going to leak, and in this case, it was the storytelling.

Now look, I understand the challenge here. Mortal Kombat lore is massive. Trying to fit tournaments, character arcs, Netherrealm politics, Outworld drama, and ten different fights into a single movie is not easy. But understanding the problem does not automatically excuse the execution. A movie shouldn’t come with a homework assignment. If casual viewers need to Google why Sub-Zero suddenly has shadow powers, why Sindel matters, or what exactly Quan Chi is doing here, the film has already failed one of its biggest jobs.

That’s exactly where Mortal Kombat 2 struggles the most. The movie feels as if it’s completely convinced that the audience already knows everything. The director recently implied critics just don’t “understand Mortal Kombat,” and honestly, that mentality explains a lot about this film. It isn’t interested in introducing its world to newcomers. It assumes viewers already know who Noob Saibot is, what Shinnok’s amulet means, why Kitana matters, and how all these relationships connect together. For longtime gamers, those moments land because there’s already an emotional attachment. For general audiences, this movie probably feels like accidentally starting a TV show from Season 5.

Take Sub-Zero and Noob Saibot, for example. The movie brings them in, throws some cool visuals on screen, and then immediately moves on before explaining anything properly. Casual viewers are left wondering whether this is the same character from before, why there are suddenly two versions of him, and why nobody seems interested in elaborating. Sindel suffers from a similar problem. Her entire role feels rushed, and despite being one of the most iconic characters in the franchise, the movie barely showcases her actual abilities. We get the screaming powers, sure, but the legendary killer hair? Completely ignored. It’s these missing features that make Mortal Kombat 2 feel less like a finished movie and more like an Early Access build that still needed a few major updates before launch.

More Fights Don’t Automatically Fix Everything

One of the biggest complaints about the first Mortal Kombat movie was the lack of actual fights, so Mortal Kombat 2 responds by throwing combat scenes at the screen every fifteen minutes like it’s trying to speedrun an arcade ladder. But here’s the thing: simply having more fights doesn’t automatically fix the issue. A fight only matters if the audience actually cares about who is winning.

Several fights look cool for a few minutes before ending just as they start getting interesting. Some characters barely showcase their unique abilities before the movie rushes off to the next set piece. Mortal Kombat is beloved because every fighter has a distinct personality and combat style, but many of the action scenes here feel more like quick fan-service checklists rather than fully realized moments.

And honestly, the “done dirty” list here is unfortunately longer than a Scorpion spear chain. Sub-Zero, who felt like an unstoppable monster in the first film, barely gets the same presence this time around. Scorpion gets iconic moments, complete with the legendary “Get over here!” line and dramatic music, but emotionally, the movie never fully capitalizes on his return either. Raiden spends most of the runtime feeling weirdly unimportant despite literally being a god. Shang Tsung and Quan Chi also never get enough breathing room to feel properly threatening or cunning. These are some of the biggest names in Mortal Kombat lore, yet the film treats several of them like glorified cameos attached to fatalities.

And then there’s Johnny Cage.

Karl Urban does his best with the material, but this version of Johnny Cage feels strangely incomplete. The marketing pushed him as the star attraction of the movie, yet the film never fully commits to making him the chaotic, flirty idiot fans actually love. Johnny Cage in the games is arrogant, shamelessly funny, constantly flirting, and somehow still lovable despite being an absolute disaster of a human being. Here, he feels toned down weirdly. There’s barely any playful chemistry with Sonya Blade, and the movie almost seems scared to let him fully embrace his personality. Instead of feeling like the life of the party, he sometimes feels like marketing material that accidentally wandered onto the set.

Ironically, the character who actually feels like the emotional center of the movie is Kitana, and honestly, she ends up being one of the film’s biggest strengths. Her storyline involving Shao Kahn is genuinely compelling, and unlike many other characters here, she actually gets a proper emotional arc with understandable motivations. Had the movie leaned harder into her perspective instead of juggling twenty different plotlines simultaneously, this could have been a significantly stronger film.

The action highlight by far is the Kung Lao vs Liu Kang fight. Easily the best sequence in the entire movie. That scene actually slows down long enough to let the choreography, emotion, and tension breathe. For a brief moment, Mortal Kombat 2 stops feeling like a frantic lore slideshow and finally becomes the movie fans wanted. Even Baraka gets some surprisingly solid moments, and Kano thankfully remains entertaining enough to remind everyone he’s still one of the franchise’s best wildcards.

Fatalities, Fan-Service, and A Whole Lot Of Missed Potential

And that’s ultimately the most frustrating thing about Mortal Kombat 2. There are genuinely about 15 to 20 minutes of greatness scattered across this movie. Small moments where the fights click, the characters work, the fan-service lands, and the emotional beats finally connect. The gore itself is fantastic too, with some brutal fatalities that absolutely deliver the crunchy violence fans came for.

But those highs are buried inside a film that constantly rushes itself to the next explosion, next reveal, or next nostalgia moment before the previous scene even has time to settle. The movie understands Mortal Kombat iconography better than it understands storytelling. It knows what fans want to see, but not always why those moments mattered in the first place. For casual viewers, I genuinely cannot recommend this movie unless the goal is simply watching creative ways to dismantle the human body for two hours straight. The film does a terrible job onboarding newcomers, and most people unfamiliar with Mortal Kombat lore will probably spend half the runtime scratching their heads, wondering why any of this matters.

For longtime fans, though? Yeah, it’s probably worth a one-time watch. There’s enough nostalgia, enough brutal violence, enough cool moments, and enough glimpses of potential to make the experience enjoyable in bursts. Just keep expectations firmly in check. Mortal Kombat 2 feels less like a complete movie and more like a highlight reel that forgot to include the context. You’ll absolutely find moments to enjoy, but by the time the credits roll, most fans are probably going to walk out thinking the same thing: This could have been so much better.

For a while, I had convinced myself that my next iPhone had to be a Pro. Not because I had genuinely thought about what I needed from a phone, but because the marketing slowly wore me down. The triple cameras, the titanium build, the ProMotion display, the idea that it could handle absolutely anything — it all created this lingering feeling that choosing the regular iPhone would somehow mean compromising. Like I would be missing out on the “real” experience. Then I stopped looking at spec sheets and started looking at my actual usage. And honestly, the entire argument for buying a Pro quietly fell apart.

Apple really knows how to make you doubt the regular iPhone

Apple is incredibly good at making the Pro feel essential. Every September, the keynote follows the same pattern. The regular iPhone gets its moment, sure, but the second the Pro models appear, the entire presentation shifts gears. Suddenly, it is all about the “best” cameras, premium materials, exclusive features, and cutting-edge performance. Even without saying it directly, the message lands pretty clearly: this is the iPhone you are supposed to want. The regular model almost starts to feel like the compromise option for people with simpler needs.

And honestly, that strategy works. Not because Apple is misleading anyone, but because the Pro genuinely is a more capable phone. The cameras are better, the build feels more premium, the extra features are real, and for the people who actually use them, the higher price absolutely makes sense. The problem starts when “this is better” quietly turns into “I need this.” That is the leap many of us make without ever stopping to think about whether those extra features would actually change how we use our phones day to day.

I kept chasing Pro features I barely used

When I stopped thinking about how I imagined I used my phone and started paying attention to how I actually used it, the reality turned out to be pretty ordinary. Most of my day is spent doing the same things most people do: scrolling through social media, replying to messages, listening to music, watching the occasional YouTube video, reading things I am interested in, checking emails, using Maps, and taking calls.

And yes, I do take a lot of photos. But when I really thought about it, I realized I was not taking the kind of photos that truly demanded a Pro-level camera system. Most of my shots happen in good lighting, with little effort, and honestly, modern smartphones are already excellent at that. I was rarely in situations where I genuinely needed a dedicated telephoto lens or the extra computational photography tricks that Apple reserves for the Pro models. And on the few occasions where camera quality actually mattered for work, I usually had a proper camera with me anyway.

Then there was ProMotion — probably the feature I used most often to justify wanting a Pro iPhone. For years, the smoother 120Hz display felt like one of the clearest reasons to spend extra on the Pro models. And to be fair, the difference is real. Scrolling feels smoother, animations look nicer, and everything feels slightly more fluid. But over time, I realized something interesting: it was a feature I appreciated most when I was actively paying attention to it. In everyday use, my brain adapted pretty quickly, and the standard iPhone never really felt slow or frustrating to use. Now that the iPhone 17 lineup finally brings high refresh rate displays to the regular models as well, that whole justification has mostly disappeared for me. One of the biggest reasons to go Pro no longer feels exclusive, and the standard iPhone suddenly makes a lot more sense than it used to.

The vanilla iPhone is carrying lot more weight than people admit

The regular iPhone has become strangely easy to underestimate, mostly because the conversation around it is always framed by what the Pro models have that it doesn’t. But when you stop comparing spec sheets for a moment and look at the standard iPhone on its own, it is actually an incredibly complete device.

The main camera is already excellent for the kind of photos most people take every day. Performance is rarely an issue either, especially now that the regular models often share the same core chip architecture as the Pro versions. Whether it is social media, gaming, multitasking, editing photos, or juggling a dozen apps at once, the phone handles it all effortlessly. The display is good, battery life has improved a lot over the years, and you still get the same software experience, the same long-term updates, and the same overall reliability that people buy iPhones for in the first place.

And honestly, for the way I actually use a phone — and probably for the way most people use one — the regular iPhone no longer feels like a compromise at all. It only starts to feel “lesser” when you compare it side-by-side with a checklist of Pro-exclusive features.

The moment I realized I was shopping for a fantasy version of myself

I am not trying to convince anyone not to buy a Pro iPhone. For some people, the extra features absolutely make sense. If you shoot a lot of video, regularly use the telephoto camera, care deeply about the premium build, or genuinely benefit from those advanced tools, then the higher price is probably justified. Those are real advantages. But they are also very specific advantages — the kind that come from understanding your own habits, not just getting swept up in the excitement.

Before jumping ship, ask yourself one simple question: Which Pro features do I genuinely use right now? Not the ones that look impressive on paper, but the ones that actually show up in your daily routine. And once you look at your real usage honestly, the answer often becomes much clearer than you expect. Sometimes, the regular iPhone is not the “lesser” choice at all. It is simply the phone that already fits the life you actually live.

I have never been particularly good at managing my phone’s battery health. I know all the advice by now — avoid charging past 80 percent, do not let the battery drain completely, try not to leave the phone plugged in overnight. I know these habits the same way I know I should probably drink more water or sleep earlier. In theory, they make perfect sense. In practice, I rarely stick to them consistently.

So when I started using the Galaxy S26 and realized that Device Care’s optimization features were quietly handling a lot of this for me, my first reaction was skepticism. Phones have offered “smart” protection tools for years now, and most of them tend to disappear into the background after you switch them on once. Half the time, I forget those settings even exist. This felt different, though. Not because it was flashy or constantly reminding me it was there, but because I could actually feel it adapting to how I used my phone, rather than forcing me to change my habits around it.

The battery babysitter I never had to babysit

Device Care on the Galaxy S26 does a lot more than simply stopping charging at 80 percent and calling it a day. Over time, it learns your charging habits and quietly adapts around them. So if you usually plug your phone in overnight, it will charge up to a certain point, pause there for a while, and then finish topping up closer to the time you normally wake up. The idea is to reduce the time the battery spends at 100%, since that is one of the biggest contributors to long-term battery wear.

But the experience goes beyond charging habits. Device Care also keeps an eye on apps running in the background, flags those draining battery, and optimizes performance in subtle ways that don’t constantly interrupt you. In fact, most of the changes were so seamless that I barely noticed them happening. The only reason I realized something was different was when I checked my battery stats and saw how much steadier the battery drain looked compared to the phones I had been using before. Together, it creates the kind of thoughtful, behind-the-scenes experience that actually matters over time. It is about helping your phone age better without requiring you to completely change how you use it every day.

Set it once, forget it gloriously

Setting it up takes less than a minute, and once it is enabled, you mostly never have to think about it again. Here is where to find everything:

• Open Settings and scroll down to Device Care.
• Tap Battery, and scroll down here to see the battery settings.
• Turn on the features you use every day. 
• While you are there, you can also enable Battery Protection if you prefer a stricter approach that caps charging at a percentage level you set.