- calendar_today September 3, 2025
Meet the New Johnny Cage: Karl Urban Brings Flair to Mortal Kombat II
After hanging up his Butcher’s coat for The Boys, Karl Urban is switching back to shades for the upcoming Mortal Kombat II. Urban will take on the role of cocky martial arts movie star Johnny Cage in the long-running video game series’s action-packed sequel. The film follows Warner Bros.’ 2021 Mortal Kombat reboot and serves as the fourth live-action entry in the franchise, following the release of the original in 1995.
The release of the trailer was a pretty slick bit of marketing, coming just one day after Warner Bros. released an entirely in-universe, fake trailer for Uncaged Fury, a cheesy 1990s action movie “starring” Johnny Cage. The fake trailer was filled with self-referential jokes about Cage’s other imaginary action films, such as Cool Hand Cage, Hard to Cage, and Rebel Without a Cage.
2025 is also the 30th anniversary of the first live-action Mortal Kombat, a critical dud on release that was a box office success and developed a cult following in the years since. Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa’s portrayal of sorcerer Shang Tsung is still considered the best by many fans of the original film. Its sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which hit theaters in 1997, was a critical and commercial disaster, with the video game publisher Midway soon going bankrupt afterward.
After Warner Bros. bought the rights, the studio hired Simon McQuoid to direct a reboot two-plus decades after the first film. That 2021 reboot introduced the character of MMA fighter Cole Young, played by Lewis Tan, who is thrown into a battle for the fate of Earthrealm. Reviews were mixed, but business was good enough that the film was greenlit for a sequel with McQuoid returning to the director’s chair. The first film ended with Young traveling to Los Angeles to find Johnny Cage, setting up the events of Mortal Kombat II.
Familiar Faces, New Characters, and a Knowing Johnny Cage
The official synopsis for Mortal Kombat II presumes audiences saw the first film, but this time the champions (now including Cage) battle in an “all-out, no-holds-barred” fight for the survival of Earthrealm against Shao Kahn’s invasion. With the fate of Earthrealm on the line, the stakes are much higher this time around.
Joining returning cast members from the first film, including Lewis Tan as Cole Young, Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Joe Taslim as Bi-Han/Noob Saibot (a.k.a. Sub-Zero), Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden, Josh Lawson as Kano, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Mehcad Brooks as Jax Briggs, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, and Max Huang as Kung Lao, are several new fighters, including Adeline Rudolph as Kitana, Tati Gabrielle as Jade, Damon Herriman (who provided the voice of Kabal in the first film) now playing Quan Chi, Martyn Ford as Shao Kahn, CJ Bloomfield as Baraka, Desmond Chiam as King Jerrod, and Ana Thu Nguyen as Queen Sindel.
The trailer for the sequel wastes little time diving into the character of Johnny Cage, as the film will reportedly take a self-aware approach to his character. In the opening of the trailer, Cage is spotted by a fan in a dive bar. “I loved Citizen Cage as a kid,” he tells the star. “They should do a reboot!” Cage, no doubt bitter about the fall from grace of his movie career, tells the fan that “nobody wants that,” and adds “‘cause that s— died in the ’90s.”
Enter Lord Raiden and Sonya Blade to cut the stoned fan off, with Raiden informing Cage that he “has been chosen to fight.” Cage, at first, thinks he is just dealing with two more overzealous fans of his, but he is then taken to a “fighting tournament to the death” in an otherworldly space. His response is: “F— that.” Cage notes that he has no mystical abilities and “can’t blow fireballs out his ass,” and insists that he’s “just incredibly handsome,” but quickly has a change of heart when Raiden says that Earthrealm is at stake. He does, however, tell Raiden to keep his face away from incoming opponents. After that, the trailer gives fans of the video game series everything they expect to see: gory, over-the-top stylized violence, signature finishing moves, and catchphrases like Scorpion’s “Get over here!”
The film’s apparent approach of leaning hard into the violent, self-referential, and tongue-in-cheek absurdity should certainly play well with Mortal Kombat fans, but only time will tell if that will be enough for Mortal Kombat II to bring in a more casual audience.
Mortal Kombat II is scheduled for release on October 24, 2025.
