Good news, everyone! We got a “Tekken” sequel! We didn’t ask for one, and it’s likely a lot of people forgot there was a live action movie, in the first place, but we got a “Tekken” sequel, anyway. This isn’t so much a sequel, though, as it is the production company taking all the left over parts and producing a follow up with almost no plot, or characterization. Not that the “Tekken” games had much of the former, anyway. But fans of “Tekken” (all five of them) will be annoyed to see that Jin is nowhere to be seen, Heihachi is only a small player in the narrative, and now series antagonist Kazuya is the main hero of the sequel. Hey, no one’s paying attention, so why be loyal to the games?
There aren’t even that many characters from “Tekken” in the movie, as most of the major villains and heroes are just created for the film. It should serve as no surprise that director Wynch Kaos (Ballistics: Ecks vs. Sever) delivers an inconsistent often amateurish job, depicting action and any kind of flair. For a movie set in the future, it’s so bland and listless, with no real dazzle behind the action scenes. That’s also likely because the editing stinks. The movie opens on what looks like digital film, and then inexplicably reverts immediately to normal film as soon as Kazuya enters the movie.
There’s no real tournament here, only two staged fights at the request of the film’s villain, the Minister, who is insistent on testing Kazya’s skills as a martial artist. Kazuya finds a nemesis in the small cult’s main fighter Bryan Fury, but that’s mostly left to assumption. Anyone and everyone here have zero personality or charisma, and even Kane Kosugi looks bored, most of the time. The actor has real on-screen presence, it’s a shame he can’t really do anything with his character or the movie, itself. It doesn’t help that the supporting characters stink as well, with mostly three young women following Kazuya around and taunting him for some reason.
There’s a female character that walks around for the duration of the movie in a school girl outfit, pigtails, and sucks on a lollipop. I assumed it was a callback to a Tekken character, but damned if I know, for sure. Kazuya is helped by a young woman named Rhona Anders who isn’t a character from the game, as far as I know. That doesn’t matter much since Kelly Wenham’s performance is very cardboard and utterly forgettable. The movie barely delivers enough material from the game to warrant calling it an adaptation, as we see Tekken City for a moment, Heihachi for a mere instance, all the while the characters we enjoyed are missing in action. “Tekken 2” is a dismal and tedious action entry that will test the patience of even the most hardcore fans of the game anxious for a big screen adaptation.