Mortal Kombat Rebirth

These eyes have seen a lot of love

 

I’m sure all of you out there have been made aware of the rumblings regarding a teaser trailer that appeared on Youtube yesterday of a new Mortal Kombat movie. Actually, it’s a short film in the vein of Batman: Dead End that director Kevin Tanchareon has organized in order to sell WB on the idea of a re-imagining of the film series, which has been dormant since Mortal Kombat Annihilation in 1997. So how does the short (it runs almost 8 minutes) hold up? 

First order is that it is definitely grim and gritty; and this is what we are handed here with Michael Jai White portraying Jax (remember, the dude who had the metal on his arms) interrogating a suspect regarding several other maniacs. Reptile, Baraka, Shang-Tsung and Sub-Zero (who are seen in photographs, but referenced heavily) are featured in case files, with Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade both put in appearances as well, portrayed by martial arts champion Matt Mullins and sci-fi goddess Jeri Ryan. The main impetus is pushing towards a hard “R”-rating for the film, and let’s face it: R-rated movies have fallen a bit in recent years, particularly grim and violent ones. Imagine what would have happened if The Dark Knight had scored that rating and Nolan kept in all the really cool stuff that inevitably got cut? 

Yum Yum eat em up

 

This definitely does not look like a fanmade trailer (just check out the link at the bottom). As good as Batman: Dead End was, there was still an almost-professional quality to that product but at the same time you could tell the limited budget that Sandy Collora was working with, even though he pulled it off remarkably well. Mortal Kombat Rebirth lives up to its name by presenting the MK universe in a realistic urban setting, taking a cue from the way Christopher Nolan shed the camp qualities of Batman and Robin and reinvigorated the series with Batman Begins and in a major way with The Dark Knight. I grew up with the original MK games and movies, and, when video games were big business in the mid-90s, the first Mortal Kombat was probably the most faithful, and most livened of the video game movies that have come out before or since. But Tancharoen recognized that this isn’t the 90s and what was cool twenty years ago, is pretty ridiculous by the standards set by the new kids coming out of Silicon Valley. 

This is just cool just for coolness sake

 

One fact that does lend credence to the possibility that this trailer is more than a short film: there were plans and even a brief production of a third Mortal Kombat film from several years ago. Titled “Devastation”, it got a lot of press writeup with Linden Ashby (who played Johnny Cage in the original film) and Chris Casamassa (Scorpion in the original) expressing interest in returning to the franchise, along with Robin Shue, probably the only man in the world who could do Liu Kang  justice. The last bit of news generated from the Devastation project came from news site Bloody-Disgusting.com in January, when it was reported that Oren Uziel had been tapped to write the script, although Uziel later said in a May interview with G4 that he was not attached to the project, nor had WB contacted him in any way regarding the film. 

"Ice" to see you

 

Are you one of the teeming masses who has yet to see the trailer? Fear not, for you can check it out here at the bottom for all your perusing needs!