3 Things We Hope For In the Mortal Kombat Movie Reboot

Mortal Kombat is an iconic game that is beloved by many all over the world for its great roster of characters and punishing fatalities. In its 27 years of existence, Mortal Kombat has spawned two movies: Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Both films tried to follow the plot of the video game, but like most films based on video games, it wasn't much of a cinema darling, and the critics tore it to shreds.

Personally, I have pretty fond memories of both films, but from an objective standpoint, I willingly admit that they were both pretty bad. So, it was with a lot of excitement that fans received the news that there is a Mortal Kombat movie reboot in the works. Social media was abuzz, and as at the beginning of the year, we even had a date for the movie—January 15, 2021.

Then the pandemic happened.

Cinemas shut their doors, and with the deluge of tragedy we've had to deal with over the last eight months or so, it was largely unsurprising that people started to discover a new-found appreciation for entertainment.

While a lot of public places are opening up a bit more (depending on which part of the world you find yourself), there was some optimism that the movie might still get a 2021 release, but these hopes were shut down by Todd Garner, a producer of the movie, who said that until it was safe for people to be outside and theaters re-open, there would be no Mortal Kombat reboot.

Producer Todd Garner has generally been generous with information, and when he said he had no idea when we'll get a trailer, the news broke many hearts. So, while we can't go into too much detail about the Mortal Kombat reboot, we can at least speculate and talk about the things we hope for.

Below are three huge expectations we have for the movie.

A better script

As mentioned before, the last two Mortal Kombat films were dumpster fires, and while there were many contributing factors to this, one of the biggest was the script. A lot of what happened in the movies made no sense, and save for the affinity fans had with some of the characters, the movie would have been way worse. The excuse back in the day could be that the first two Mortal Kombat games barely had a cohesive story, so turning that into a movie was pretty difficult. However, there is so much more material now, and the characters have so much more depth. For instance, Liu Kang has gone from being a generic 'chosen one' to a tragic character with an impossible burden placed on him by a well-meaning but irresponsible god (I'm looking at you, Raiden). There is some worry as a leaked script back in 2018 showed a story that isn't particularly...um...great to read. But that was two years ago, so there must have been a chance to tweak the script and present something a lot more interesting for fans to feast their eyes on.

Great CGI

One of the biggest failings of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was the bad CGI. No one can forget that scene where Liu Kang turned into a dragon to fight Shao Kahn. It wasn't pretty. We have news that the movie will be an R18 experience, which is great, and we've seen many projects lean into this to great success, like Old man Logan. But, no amount of gore will make up for terrible CGI, and Mortal Kombat is a movie that will require a LOT of CGI, so here's hoping that we get something good. There are literally no excuses as we now have the technology to pull it off, and if done well, the Mortal Kombat reboot movie could be one hell of a visual spectacle.

Better adaptation of MK's lore

Mortal Kombat has developed some pretty awesome lore, and a great adaptation could really make it pop. While to many, Mortal Kombat is simply about a martial arts tournament, it is actually a deathly struggle against subjugation from an impossible enemy. There are other fighting games with inferior storylines, but Mortal Kombat has something special from a story perspective, so it is hoped that they make good use of it.

It seems that Warner Bros has at least given us a decent cast with Chin Han set to play the role of Shang Tsung, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, while Japanese legend Hiroyuki Sanada will play the role of the vengeful Scorpion. With James Wan acting as a producer, and ample time to come up with a great movie, our fingers are crossed that we finally get a decent live-action adaptation of Mortal Kombat. We can count on great performances from Hiroyuki Sanada, and hopes are high for Ludi Lin while Chin Han rarely disappoints.

Come on, guys, the bar is REALLY low!