Michael Jai White and Jeri Ryan's IMDb profiles don't currently mention anything about a new Mortal Kombat movie, but a new video clip clearly intended to introduce a Mortal Kombat movie employed two actors who bear striking resemblances to Black Dynamite and Seven of Nine. The new take on MK doesn't have any credits attached, nor does it look like Paul W.S. Anderson's "Mortal Kombat." It does, however, make you wonder if there isn't going to be a big movie announcement coming to E3.
The demonic energies and extra-dimensional elements seem to be all sapped out of the MK short acquired by Kotaku. Instead, the new takes on the best known bloodbath in fighting games opts for a distinctly more "Saw"-ish horror approach with some high-octane one-on-one combat slipped into the plot.
Purists may disapprove of the bare-faced Scorpion and deformed human version of Reptile who appear, but conceptually this is a movie I could get behind. "Mortal Kombat" originally hooked me with its old-style kung-fu movie look stuffed with random moments of cartoonish absurdity and violent excess that snuck in over the course of its first two sequels. The subtle nods to the video games' continuity and mythos here seem to operate the same way. I love the pacing.
If this is for real, it looks like it could be the first MK movie to really understand an effective use of gore in the context of its story as well. I don't know who made it or where it ultimately came from, but I want more.
Would you go see a Mortal Kombat movie that looked like this? Do you think it's going to happen? Share your analysis in the comment section below.