As we’ve said before, the new Mortal Kombat movie is about family. Oh, and also beating the shit out of your enemies. So how do you even combine tender moments with good ol’ Mortal Kombat gore? The official trailer for the movie answers this.
The trailer introduces brand new character Cole Young (Lewis Tan), as well as the franchise’s staple characters, like Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Shang Tsung (Chin Han), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), Jax Briggs (Mehcad Brooks), and Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim). In case you were concerned the movie wouldn’t include enough of Mortal Kombat’s signature gore, we get to see Sub-Zero destroy Jax’s arms and then use someone’s frozen blood as a weapon, so that should offer some relief. You can check out the not-quite-safe-for-work clip below.
Here’s the full synopsis, courtesy of Warner Bros. :
In Mortal Kombat, MMA fighter Cole Young, accustomed to taking a beating for money, is unaware of his heritage—or why Outworld’s Emperor Shang Tsung has sent his best warrior, Sub-Zero, an otherworldly Cryomancer, to hunt Cole down. Fearing for his family’s safety, Cole goes in search of Sonya Blade at the direction of Jax, a Special Forces Major who bears the same strange dragon marking Cole was born with. Soon, he finds himself at the temple of Lord Raiden, an Elder God and the protector of Earthrealm, who grants sanctuary to those who bear the mark. Here, Cole trains with experienced warriors Liu Kang, Kung Lao and rogue mercenary Kano, as he prepares to stand with Earth’s greatest champions against the enemies of Outworld in a high stakes battle for the universe. But will Cole be pushed hard enough to unlock his arcana—the immense power from within his soul—in time to save not only his family, but to stop Outworld once and for all?
Mortal Kombat kicks into high gear on April 16. It’ll be released in both theaters and HBO Max as part of Warner Bros.’ new hybrid theater-streaming model.
104 Comments
I really appreciate that they went full balls to the wall with this film. Also have to admit I was not sold on Kano from the initial shots of him, but I am on board now.
Two thoughts spring to mind:Correct if I’m wrong but why is this bland white dude the main protagonist of the movie when Liu Kang’s been the main protagonist of at least a good chunk of the franchise (IIRC, he canonically won the tournament in the first game.). At least he was in the last two MK movies. I feel like the movie’s missing somebody…It just feels weird that the movie that’s effectively created this generic, white chosen one to be the protagonist and make the asian character who, for the most part, was framed as the protagonist in the rest of the franchise.
If you’re talking about Lewis Tan, I believe he’s half-Asian? Though I agree with you that he feels somewhat generic.
You are correct and I’ll retract that point but it’s still weird that they’d just create a new, bland character and frame him as the main protagonist.
Lewis Tan may have Asian heritage, but “Cole Young” sounds like the warmup act for the opening act for Luke Bryan.
Yeah if they were going to have a bland protagonist to serve as an audience introduction to all these kharacters and fighters by training with them as the story progressed, they could have just used Shujinko from MK: Deception
Yeah, who is this Cole guy and why do I care about him? If they wanted a young POV character, the games made it a point to give us 4 of them in MK X to choose from…
He’s probably a pre-mutilated legacy character like Smoke or Kabal.
Johnny Cage was 100% the best part of the 95 movie. I almost walked out of Annihilation when he died 5 minutes in (that would have been the smart play, tbh).It is pretty odd that Liu Kang isn’t the protagonist, but unless I’m very mistaken that dude isn’t white. Also they appear to have Asian actors for most of the cast (including Raiden, thank god, I love Christopher Lambert but holy hell was that bad casting).
Yeah it’s already been pointed out that the actor is half-asian. And yeah it was weird for a white Frenchman to play a Shinto deity but Lambert was fun to watch.
Lambert chewing scenery with a ridiculous accent is half the joy of that movie
My bet is that Cole ends up adopting the stage name Johnny Cage by movie’s end because I don’t see any reality in which JC is missing from a Mortal Kombat movie, especiall since he and Sonya have a child together.
Hot take: James Remar was bad casting in the sequel. Lambert, who’s no stranger to playing immortals, brought just enough wise-wearyness and gravitas to make it work. Also, it was a nice touch that, as a god, he took a somewhat casual approach, managing to crack a smile and a chuckle over the whole thing.Essentially, MK ‘95 Raiden embodied the film as grand but didn’t take itself too seriously.I doubt anyone will remember this Raiden, even if the special effects are better.
This is the least good chunk.
Looks like Cole Young is the protagonist, though, played by Lewis Tan (who is half-Chinese). That means the main protagonist isn’t a bland white dude; he’s a bland (at-least-half-)Chinese dude.
Lewis Tan, the guy playing the protagonist, is Asian American (he may be biracial). He was probably picked because he’s a martial arts stunt performer as well as an actor. His best work imo was an episode of Iron Fist where he played a Drunken Master and stole his scenes with the lead (perhaps not a high bar). But he’s also been in Into The Badlands, Deadpool 2 amongst other stuff.That said I’m surprised at his persona here because I assumed he was a Johnny Cage analog/replacement. Tan has been most effective in the past playing cocky characters which seemed an appropriate quality for someone filling Cage’s role. Liu Kang already is the straightforward Boy Scout type. The filmmakers apparently feel that audiences need a new character as an entry point, which doesn’t seem necessary to me. But Tan is very good at ass kicking.
Yeah that was a mistake on my part on thinking Lewis Tan is white. But honestly, if they needed an audience surrogate to deliver exposition to, they could have just made him Johnny Cage rather than a bland MMA fighter.
I agree that making Tan more like Cage — or actually play Cage — seems like a better choice. I don’t think the trailer is bad — it’s truer to its franchise than most video game movies — but its surpassed by the in game videos in the last MK game.
But why on earth is the protagonist named Cole Young?
No idea except that the screenwriter thought it sounded like a cool hero name. Seems derivative of the outlaw name Cole Younger (member of the Jesse James gang).
Additional thought on Cole Young: as noted, Cole Younger was a member the James/Younger Gang, a group of Old West outlaws composed of two families who eventually went separate ways. If Cole Young is, as rumored, Scorpion’s descendent, his name may be an allusion to the fact that Scorpion and Sub-Zero were once allies and members of the same ninja clan.
My guess is they hope their original character gets adopted into the canon. I wouldn’t have gone that route, but at least from a writing perspective it does give them a bit more storytelling freedom without stepping on any toes. Fans tend to get pissed when you mess with established characters, but they won’t care if it’s someone new- which leads me to my second guess: Cole’s the hero who dies. Safer to do it with a generic new guy than someone popular like Johnny Cage.
i also assume, cynically, the movie studio would own the movie characters, so if he ends up being wildly popular, the game studio would then have to licence the characters to put them in. so that incentivizes an all-new character, albeit in the worst way.
But WB owns NetherRealm Studios (who makes Mortal Kombat games) already. It just seems like extra steps for a similar result imo.
very good point!
On the other hand: the big reveal could be that he ends up being an established character all along.
It’s all speculation, but people assume that Cole Young is going to turn out to be Johnny Cage in the end. In the reboot trilogy, Liu Kang died and turned into an evil zombie at the end of 2011, so Johnny became one of the main characters in X.
Laserface, I usually love your observations, but you’re wrong about this one, man. Lewis Tan deserves this opportunity. He’s been plugging away for years in the action genre, getting unfairly outshown by less talented performers. Dunno if you were around for the Netflix Iron fist controversy, but Tan basically got screwed out of the role of Danny Rand so they could keep it milk white. Dude’s awesome, he’ll bring a lot to this flick.
I’m thinking it might be a “John Harrison” situation, where they give this guy a name seemingly unrelated to the canon only to reveal later that he’s an established character.
I think I’ll watch the original again, which is still pretty okay.Maybe I’ll make it a double header and watch Street Fighter again, too.
I’ll watch Overdrawn At The Memory Bank
My nuts?
Come as you are, to my mall, to my a-a-trium…!
Want some Pringles, Fingal?!
Whoa, huge slam on anteaters out of nowhere!
Is that why it cost as much as Blade Runner?
I can always re-watch that first Mortal Kombat film. The Street Fighter movie though? Oof, I’m sort of a fan of Van Damme from his heyday there, but there’s no way I would willingly sit through Street Fighter again.
I don’t know. I think the one from 1995 was quite enough.
More-tal Kombat!
Look, I was in my early teens when the Mortal Kombat video game & movie franchise were at their peak, so I am unabashedly very there for this. We’d better just get the goddamn theme song at some point.
I was about to say, I don’t hear any 90s techno. That has me worried.
I don’t want the whole movie to just be nostalgic references (although, let’s face it, this is Mortal Kombat, not high art), but that is the greatest movie theme ever, they had better at least put it over the closing credits.
I’m seeing some slagging of Annihilation, which is extremely cheesy and cheap but also uses the theme in the movie itself. If this new flick doesn’t have a needle-drop as good as this, it is an objectively inferior movie:
I hear Fear Factory’s looking for work…
The music at the end actually sounds a bit like the old movie’s theme. Easter egg?
I never actually got around to seeing the first movie, but the preview is probably the only one I can remember where the music was the main hook.
The music at the end of the trailer is a slower, orchestral version! But if at some point in the movie the full techno version kicks in I’ll die happy.
I’m guessing they’ll save it either for the climax or the end credits
I heard a few notes of the song at the end, so I think it will be there, but might be made into an instrumental version, which isn’t quite the same
100x more interested in watching this goofy as shit self-serious schlockfest than Zach Snyder’s 4-hour Justice Turd.
I mean it’s the obvious comparison right? Wtf
This seems pretty self-serious in tone as it is, despite the exchange of “It’s a birthmark” “What do you mean?” “He was born with it” needing only the kicker “But that’s not important right now” to be a lost bit of Airplane! dialogue.
Surely you can’t be serious!
I am serious. And I never have a second cup of coffee at home.
I cannot wait until the eventual evening when my wife goes to bed early while I smoke a ton of weed and enjoy this early frontrunner for Best Picture.
So at 0:46 in the clip, there’s a landscape shot that appears to demonstrate the characters walking around on one of the moons of Jupiter. Discuss.
Good catch, just thought it was a generic desolate landscape on first watch. Didn’t notice the giant-ass planet in the sky. Might be the movie’s interpretation of Outworld or one of the other realms rather than actual Jupiter.
I instantly clocked that as Australia. Come to find the director said its Outworld- Shot in a disused coal mine in Australia. heh. Not exactly how the games depict it, but I can see the other-worldy look he’s going for.
Australia: for all your desolate wasteland needs!
We have West Texas RIGHT HERE!
Our current government is certainly working towards wasteland as an end point.
It might be Outworld as it starts overtaking Earthrealm? I assume that’s going to be part of the goal, right? Judging by the statue of Shao Khan?
I love that even a statue of Shao Kahn looks better than the one in that was Annihilation
Maybe they were transported there by Dr. Manhattan. Dr. Manhattan DLC confirmed?
Girl: Its a birthmark.Guy: What do you mean?Girl: He was born with it.If the screenwriter does not get an Oscar for this script, I’ve lost all faith in humanity.
Glad they took that long beat to let Sub-Zero say his famous catch phrase “I am Sub-Zero”.
Hahahaha, right? Maybe he’s just excited to no longer be Plain Zero.
As nostalgic as the original is, they really skimped on the Sub-Zero. This seems like a big course correction.
Presumably effects technology has finally come a long enough way to do him correctly, from the looks of it.
Happy to see Scorpion, and Sub-Zero taking the pandemic seriously!
If this is half as good as last years Scorpion’s Revenge it will be glorious. That was the definitive MK movie.
Huh? That cartoon wasn’t even interested in having an actual narrative. The definitive MK movie is the Mortal Kombat 9 Story Mode!
NO JOHNNY CAGE!!!!?
I don’t think it’s a smart move to try and mesh the down-to-earth, real-world elements like MMA with cyborg special forces agents, Shaolin warrior monks and magic ninjas from other dimensions.
But hey, Hiroyuki Sanada looks pretty dope as Scorpion.
This is the perfect movie to come to HBO Max so I can watch it at home at midnight on a Friday.
How much longer are we going to be beholden to Nolan-like overseriousness in films, especially big-time H-Wood action blockbusters? What happened to warmth? It’s like if there’s even a sense of humanity, then overgrown dudes will see the movie as a joke, or something? This entire trailer plays like a satire of action films. And I WANT a Mortal Combat reboot and desperately want this to be good but it looks like it’s going to be bad. Nothing but call-backs to fan-faves in dramatic fashion like Endgame without a plot, story or actors/characters I can relate to. It just looks like it’s going to be lazy.
Yup
Eh I disagree. I hated DCEU going dark and gritty but Mortal Kombat games and stories generally are that. A Mortal Kombat movie without the blood / gore / fatalities would be lame.
You can’t relate to supernatural ninjas in a other-worldly martial arts tournament? And what else other than call backs does a movie based on a video game have to go on?This looks like stupid fun and I very much look forward to it. This should be the 4 hour long movie on HBO Max.
Toasty!
Repost when someone remixes the trailer with the MK soundtrack complete with the proper name introductions.
Make America Cheesy Again.
I’ll still watch it. I sat through Doom and Extraction.
This looks good to me. I’m sure the plot isn’t going to be any good but it seems like they got the action right. I’m not someone who advocates for every movie to be rated R but Mortal Kombat absolutely works better with blood and gore in the fights like the games have.My two complaints so far are that they should have used the original theme song (or a version of it) and Scorpion’s “Get Over Here!” is not nearly as cool as the original movie.
they should have used the original theme song (or a version of it)
The music here is a version of it, isn’t it? It’s most noticeable at the end, but I’m pretty sure even before that, subtly.
Might be the dumbest, cheesiest movie I’ll ever REALLY NEED TO SEE NOW. How the fuck am I turning 47 this year??
A question I’m also asking myself this year.Beats the alternative, I guess.
It hadn’t really occurred to me until now that I’ll be 47 this year too and now I’m extremely depressed.
Oh my god you’re all so old!I’m turning 45.
Wait, Sub-Zero is about to say something interesting.Ok nevermind.
Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion is worth the price of admission (my HBO Max subscription.)Weird that there’s this “chosen one” narrative happening here, but ehh. I did see a Cole Young speculation (his name sounds like another character’s real name) that I liked well enough that I’m hoping is what’s going on here.
This actually looks….kinda good?
They could’ve held back a bit. We all know Jax is gonna get his arms, but exactly how would’ve been fun to see in the movie itself.Also where’s Johnny Cage?!
Sure the gore is good, the catchphrases are good, but I didn’t see one “Friendship” in this trailer.
Nor a single “Toasty!”
I’m guessing Cole will actually end up being an established character or he’ll betray the earth realm warriors and it’ll be revealed that he’s a villain in disguise, either Shang Tsung or Quan Chi.
Hadouken!
C-C-C-COMBO BREAKERRR!!!
As long as we get this song in the film with the guy yelling “MORTAL KOMBAT!” multiple times, I’ll be happy.
This had better make enough money that they can make a sequel and put Johnny fucking Cage in already.
Ok. But where’s Chun-Li?
Seriously. I’m hoping she’s a surprise for the audience…? Or she shows up in the next trailer.
100% Cole Young says that’s it’s just a stage name…that his real last name is Cage..
I don’t know how to take a non-Belgian Raiden seriously.