The Mortal Kombat trailer remade with felt puppets quite literally softens the film’s gory acts of violence. At long last, the latest film adaptation of the beloved video game series will arrive this week. Mortal Kombat will premiere in theaters and on HBO Max this Friday after being pushed back a handful of times. It’s the first movie based on the long-running franchise to arrive since 1997’s much-maligned Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Though video game movies are known to be rather difficult to nail, the early buzz for Simon McQuoid’s Mortal Kombat has been quite positive among fans.

Much like the games themselves, the new Mortal Kombat will see the greatest fighters of Earthrealm fight their enemies from Outerworld who seek to gain control of the former. A plethora of characters from the games will have roles in the film, from Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) to Liu Kang (Ludi Lin). Fans were surprised, though, to learn Johnny Cage doesn’t factor into Mortal Kombat. Instead, the ensemble will be headed up by an entirely new character named Cole Young (Lewis Tan). Since his character was announced, fans have speculated about his true identity, wondering if he truly could be someone from the games.

SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY

It can’t be a Mortal Kombat movie without fatalities, and the trailers for the film have promised some seriously gruesome ones. However, a parody trailer for the film from Adult Swim decides to tone down the violence by turning its warriors into felt puppets. Posted on social media on Tuesday, Adult Swim’s take on Mortal Kombat presents a series of “felt-alities” that make the brutal fights easier to watch, even if they still include substantial amounts of blood (in the form of red yarn). Check it out down below.

The Mortal Kombat games are best known for their grisly fights, and it looks like the movie won’t be shying away from that. Tan even admitted he felt sick after showing up to the Mortal Kombat set after a fatality was shot. This movie will not be for the faint of heart, but fans of the games will  appreciate that. The early reviews for Mortal Kombat promised a movie that honors the games and gives the right amount of stylish, violent action.

With Mortal Kombat arriving this weekend, all eyes will be on it to see how it performs. With the dual HBO Max-theaters release, its full performance won’t be easy to see, but the online conversation will surely see a bump. This could turn into a proper franchise if fans are pleased with this installment, and hopefully they will be. After all, Mortal Kombat appears to be the movie they have been waiting for, brutal battles and all.

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Source: Adult Swim/Twitter

Key Release Dates
  • Mortal Kombat (2021)Release date: Apr 23, 2021
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Rachel Labonte
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Rachel LaBonte is a news, feature, and movie review writer for Screen Rant with a deep passion for film and television. A graduate of Emerson College, she majored in Media Arts Production while specializing in screenwriting. She’s been a writer ever since high school when she realized she was rather good at it and joined as many entertainment news clubs as she could while in school. Most notably, she wrote for Emerson’s website Emertainment Monthly, and one of her film reviews won an Evvy (Emerson’s student awards) for Best Review. Her deep love of movies led to her working at a movie theater for five years, which she loved despite the angry customers. An avid reader who constantly buys books before reading the ones she already owns, Rachel is a huge fan of superheroes (especially of the Marvel variety) and wizards and will likely never be able to catch up on all the movies/TV shows she longs to watch.

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