Video game fans seem to never tire of film adaptations of beloved big screen throwbacks to their misspent youth. The movies are often plotless, just collections of quips and a parade of indifferently tied-together scenes with this or that beloved character, a few even played by big name stars as “Lara Croft,” “Minecraft,” “Street Fighter,” this or that “Mario Brother” “come to life.”

Invariably, they don’t “come to life,” and that’s a problem for those of us who haven’t devoted enough screen time to this interactive “content.”

“Mortal Kombat II” isn’t appreciably different from any of the other “Mortal Kombats” — which have generated four big screen adaptations and a couple of TV series. In the 30-plus years since this first Paul W.S. Anderson (LOL) adaptation, stars have come and gone, as has Anderson. Pretty much. The original game maker went bankrupt and yet here we are.

This latest iteration of the franchise is jokier, bloodier and far more littered with F-bombs. The production values are higher, with CGI sets, psychotronic effects, lavish costumes and makeup and decent fight choreography that occasionally hides which actors have the moves and who needs the most digitally assisted stuntmen helping out.

Characters fight to the death, but no “death” is permanent. I know Josh Larson, playing Aussie wisecracker Kano, is grateful for the work. But the upshot of that is that the stakes start out low and stay low. There’s no reason to invest in a character’s fate because he or she can be video-game reborn.

And Karl Urban’s better at dry, catch-phrases and one-liners than anybody else who played the martial arts actor sucked into a fight to the death to save “Earthrealm” from whatever extraterrestrial threat faces it this time.

This Johnny Cage wears Rayban Wayfarers. And he goes by “Johnny F—ing Cage,” thank you.

Johnny’s a ’90s action movie has-been trapped in fan convention hell when he’s summoned to join “Blondie” (Jessica McNamee), Jax (Mehcad Brooks), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) and others in Lord Raiden’s (Tadanobu Asano) Earth-defending corps.

Martyn Ford plays the super-dooper supervillain Shao Kahn, a towering, helmeted hulk armed with a warclub the size of a data center. Adeline Rudolph is the daughter of a vanquished foe he’s raised to be his champion, trained by petite fury Jade (Tati Gabrielle).

The old pros in the cast (Urban, Hiroyuki Sanada) don’t let the boredom or embarassment show. Much. But nobody seems invested in the characters or in what they’re doing with them. Well, maybe Lawson.

Urban gets most of the one-liners, from Johnny’s on-screen catch phrase “It’s show time,” to cracks about “Transformer arms” Jax, “Big Trouble in Little China” settings and an old martial arts actor’s eagerness to cite his credentials.

“Hey, I got a SATURN Award for ‘Best Fight in a Feature Film!'”

Lawson’s return means Urban has to share the “Pennywise” and “Spirit Halloween” zingers. At heast the New Line Cinema checks cleared, right?

A sample of Johnny’s ’90s movie career — the snap of his sunglasses preceding every “It’s SHOW time” — is about as compelling as the movie that movie within a movie turns out to be.

I laughed a few times, but this pile of cluttered, poorly organized exposition interrupted by CGI brawls isn’t going to headline screenwriter Jeremy Slater’s resume.

And director Simon McQuoid? Well, somebody’s got to be the new Paul W.S. Anderson.

Rating: R, graphic, bloody violence, lots of profanity

Cast: Karl Urban, Adeline Rudolph, Tati Gabrielle, Jessica McNamee, Martyn Ford, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Lewis Tan, Max Huang, Tadanobu Asano, Josh Lawson, Chin Han and Hiroyuki Sanada.

Credits: Directed by Simon McQuoid, scripted by Jeremy Slater. A New Line Cinema release.

Running time: 1:56