Cage Is Back—and More Meta Than Ever—in Mortal Kombat II

Karl Urban is trading in his nuke-proof jacket and Butcher’s coat for some sunnies and slow-motion punches in next year’s Mortal Kombat II. The Lord of the Rings and Star Trek actor is joining the growing ranks of stars in the long-running video game franchise by playing Johnny Cage, the egotistical martial arts star. The movie is the follow-up to Warner Bros.’s 2021 reboot and the fourth live-action Mortal Kombat film since the first one hit theaters in 1995.

Filmmakers also seem to have had a good sense of humor when it came to timing the release of the first trailer—it dropped just one day after Warner Bros. released a mock in-universe trailer for a 1990s-style action schlockfest called Uncaged Fury, “starring” Johnny Cage, of course. The trailer for Cage’s faux-vehicle features winks at the rest of his fictitious action movie oeuvre, including the titles Cool Hand Cage, Hard to Cage, and Rebel Without a Cage.

In addition to this new live-action film, 2025 also marks the 30th anniversary of the first live-action Mortal Kombat. Though the original 1995 film was an unequivocal critical flop, it was a box office success and has since become a cult classic. Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa’s take on the sorcerer Shang Tsung has never been surpassed in the eyes of most fans. The 1997 sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, was an even bigger critical and commercial disaster, and Midway, the publisher of the game series, went bankrupt shortly after its release.

Warner Bros. later bought the rights and hired Simon McQuoid to direct a reboot more than 20 years after the original film. The 2021 reboot starred Lewis Tan as Cole Young, an MMA fighter who gets caught up in an intergalactic war to save Earthrealm. Reviews were mixed, but the film was a modest box office hit, which was enough to green-light a sequel, again from McQuoid. The original film ended with Cole journeying to Los Angeles to seek the aid of his hero, Johnny Cage, and Mortal Kombat II will pick up after those events.

Old Favorites, New Blood, and Cage: Now, Self-Aware

The official synopsis for Mortal Kombat II doesn’t hold your hand at all and instead assumes viewers have seen the first film. In this one, the champions from the first movie, who have now been joined by Johnny Cage, must take part in an all-out, no-rules combat tournament to save Earthrealm from Shao Kahn’s invasion.

A number of the returning cast members from the first film will be back for the sequel: Lewis Tan (Cole Young), Jessica McNamee (Sonya Blade), Joe Taslim (Bi-Han/Noob Saibot (aka Sub-Zero)), Tadanobu Asano (Lord Raiden), Josh Lawson (Kano), Ludi Lin (Liu Kang), Mehcad Brooks (Jax Briggs), Chin Han (Shang Tsung), Hiroyuki Sanada (Scorpion), and Max Huang (Kung Lao).

Mortal Kombat II will also add a slew of new fighters to the mix, including Adeline Rudolph (Kitana), Tati Gabrielle (Jade), Damon Herriman (previously the voice of Kabal in the 2021 film), now repping Quan Chi, Martyn Ford (Shao Kahn), CJ Bloomfield (Baraka), Desmond Chiam (King Jerrod), and Ana Thu Nguyen (Queen Sindel).

The self-aware trailer picks up right after one fan in a seedy dive bar gives Cage the cold shoulder by shouting that he loved Cage’s classic action flick Citizen Cage as a kid, and that he should get a reboot. Cage, who is thoroughly bitter about his washed-up career, responds that nobody wants that because those kinds of films died in the 1990s.

Lord Raiden and Sonya Blade step in, as they had some information for Cage, but his first response is to call them groupies, and he’s unimpressed by their metal arms. “You have been chosen to fight,” Raiden tells him. Cage sarcastically replies that he’s heard that one before as Sonya and Raiden take him to an otherworldly, video game-looking location, where it’s explained to Cage that he’s been chosen for “a fighting tournament to the death.”

“I’m sorry, I f—ing hate fight club. F— that,” Cage says, to Raiden and Sonya’s obvious chagrin. He makes it clear that his lack of supernatural powers puts him at a disadvantage, to which Raiden replies, “We are all just warriors,” in what has quickly become the film’s cheeky tagline. Cage retorts that “I’m just incredibly handsome,” but he relents, reluctantly, when he learns that the fate of Earthrealm is on the line, although he does ask, only half-jokingly, that they please not damage his face in any way.

Mortal Kombat II will be released on October 24, 2025.