I have a soft-spot for 90s era super-hero-adjacent films. Stuff like Darkman, Phantom, The Crow, Dark City, The Shadow, even The Mask, or treading into proper (anti)heroes like Spawn and Blade. And I’ll even put the original Mortal Kombat duology in that mix, despite how Annihilation turned out. I do still love them so. It was that love of the property that led me to closely following the production of the new Mortal Kombat reboot film from Warner Bros. And now we finally have a trailer for it. Check it out below:
Mortal Kombat is directed by Simon McQuoid, making his directorial debut, written by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham, starring Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Joe Taslim, and Hiroyuki Sanada.
It doesn’t look like it brings much new to the table. It’s going to lean heavy into the fantasy fighting, and just be a hell of a lot of fun. And that’s really all I ask of it. I’m not expecting it to be a game changer. That said… Sub-Zero stabbing someone with an ice dagger made out of their own blood, that’s fucking chef’s kiss perfect. It’s not holding back. This looks like it captures the gleefully dark fun of those 90s era films.
I’ll be vaccined up by the time this hits theatres, so I’ll probably make a trip to the theatre for it. Ever since Hiroyuki Sanada showed up in later seasons of Lost, I’ve always enjoyed catching him in things. And the rest of that cast is just damn impressive with Ludi Lin, Lewis Tan, Mehcad Brooks and Chin Han.
What I’d really like, in advance of the film’s release, is for Warner Bros. to put the original Mortal Kombat films on HBOMax as a primer. The originals were put out by New Line Cinema, which WB owns, so they have the films in their library. Just sitting there. Not being watched by anyone at all. No one’s gonna pay $3 to rent it off Amazon. Not Annihilation anyway. MAYBE the first one.
Mortal Kombat will debut in theatres and on HBOMax on April 18th.
The Empty Theatre 
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