At the very least, this movie looks like it's going to deliver a lot of over-the-top action.
Video game movies are notoriously awful. From Super Mario Bros. to Warcraft, Hollywood has been struggling for decades to turn massively popular games into anything less than total crap on the silver screen. So when it was announced that we would be getting yet another Mortal Kombat adaptation in 2021, most fans were understandably skeptical. But when the trailer dropped online yesterday, we were all forced to ask ourselves a previously unthinkable question: is it possible this movie might not suck?
The plot of the movie is relatively straightforward. A down-on-his-luck MMA fighter named Cole Young learns he is part of a secret, ancient lineage and must fight in the titular tournament to defeat the villainous Sub-Zero and, obviously, save the world. We also get a glimpse of characters that fans of the video game franchise know and love, including Sonya Blade, Scorpion, and Lord Raiden.
The trailer makes the smart choice to focus less on the story and more on the action, and since it’s a red-band trailer, we get to see some pretty gnarly moments, including Sub-Zero mercilessly slicing off Jax’s arms. From the perspective of fans, the primary appeal of the movie is getting to see these iconic characters beating the crap out of each other in increasingly insane ways and this trailer delivers that in full.
Of course, it’s just a trailer so there’s still a chance that Mortal Kombat becomes the latest beloved video game that is adapted into an unwatchable movie. But based on the 150 seconds we’ve seen so far, it looks like Mortal Kombat could at least be a fun, over-the-top action movie. And given the bleak state of pretty much everything right now, that sounds pretty damn good.
Mortal Kombat will be available to watch in select theaters and on HBO Max on April 16.
