Karl Urban Punches Into Mortal Kombat as Johnny Cage

Karl Urban will be trading in his signature coat of the Butcher for a pair of designer shades, as he’s joining the all-star cast of Mortal Kombat II. The Lord of the Rings and Star Trek alum is repping as cocky action star and martial arts icon Johnny Cage, and is quickly becoming the resident franchise face for Warner Bros.’ 2025 sequel to last year’s Mortal Kombat reboot. It’s the fourth live-action film in the series, following the original’s release in 1995.

Coinciding with the release of the one-minute-21-second trailer is another in a long line of cheeky pre-release stunts by Warner Bros., as they also dropped a fake in-universe trailer for Uncaged Fury on Wednesday. Styled as a gritty, 90s-style action film and directed by (fictional) martial arts auteur Wong Wei-Ching, Uncaged Fury is a feature “starring” Johnny Cage.

If the spoiler-filled video is to be believed, Cage has a filmography that includes works like Cool Hand Cage, Hard to Cage, and Rebel Without a Cage, to name a few.

2025 will also mark the 30th anniversary of the first live-action Mortal Kombat. Although a critical dud on release, the original became a box office hit that went on to enjoy a cult following. Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa’s Shang Tsung is a fan-favorite portrayal of the eponymous sorcerer to this day. Its sequel, 1997’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, is considered by most to be one of the worst superhero/comic book films of all time, and is widely regarded as a financial and critical bomb. Midway, the game’s publisher, went bankrupt in the years that followed.

Warner Bros. later acquired the rights to make a Mortal Kombat reboot of their own, and after an extensive search, Simon McQuoid was hired to direct more than 20 years after the original film. The 2021 feature saw Lewis Tan as Cole Young, an MMA fighter who’s caught up in a battle for Earthrealm between gods and demons, and while the critical reception was mixed, the film was a commercial success that has since been given the green light for a sequel, again with McQuoid behind the camera. That first film ended with Cole Young on his way to Los Angeles to recruit movie star Johnny Cage, which sets the scene for Mortal Kombat II.

Old Favorites, New Blood, and Our Own Self-Aware Johnny Cage

The official synopsis for Mortal Kombat II does not attempt to reintroduce the players in the video game series, instead assuming audience members are already quite familiar with the first film. Johnny Cage, the last of the champions to be brought aboard the all-star roster, joins the returning group in a do-or-die battle against the demonic Shao Kahn and his evil Outworld forces. A no-holds-barred fight for the very survival of the realm of Earth.

Lewis Tan (Cole Young), Jessica McNamee (Sonya Blade), Joe Taslim (Bi-Han/Noob Saibot (a.k.a. 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) will be returning for the sequel. The new fighters joining the ranks are Adeline Rudolph (Kitana), Tati Gabrielle (Jade), Damon Herriman (Quan Chi), Martyn Ford (Shao Kahn), CJ Bloomfield (Baraka), Desmond Chiam (King Jerrod), and Ana Thu Nguyen (Queen Sindel). Herriman had previously voiced the character of Kabal in the previous film.

Mortal Kombat II opens in a bar, with Johnny Cage’s hand cupping a drink and approaching a fan, who he taps on the shoulder, sending his glass crashing to the floor. “I loved Citizen Cage as a kid. They should do a reboot!” Cage deadpans back, “Nobody wants that.” The faux diehard fan answers back, to which Cage replies, “The world had no room for your kind of movie after the ’90s.” The world may have moved on for Cage, who’s shown to be bitter and jaded about his fall from grace in Hollywood. He’s in a dive bar for some cheap beers when Raiden and Sonya Blade burst through a door behind him, startling him. The former police officer reminds Cage that he has been chosen to fight, and though Cage thinks it’s a joke and he’s being hounded by star-struck fans, Raiden and Blade soon whisk him off to another world for what they tell him is a “fighting tournament to the death.” Cage: “F— that.”

As with all his cinematic predecessors in the realm, Cage is a lesser martial artist and an arrogant showoff who relies on his good looks rather than actual skills to best his opponents. The trailer shows Cage protesting that he has no supernatural powers that would help him in battle, and quickly changing his tune after it’s revealed that Earthrealm’s very existence is at stake. “Can you just not kick people in the face?” he asks before joining the fight. Heeding his demand of no face damage, the camera pulls back, and the poster drops to reveal the stylized brutality and classic finishing moves we all expect in Mortal Kombat. Iconic lines are peppered throughout, like Scorpion’s “Get over here!” and we hear the familiar sound of digitized characters shouting the classic finishing move lines in their own, unique accents.

Audiences can expect the same bloody violence and self-referential humor in Mortal Kombat II, which is all but guaranteed to appease those who count themselves among the game’s legions of fans. Whether the film can reach beyond the over-the-top universe and grab hold of the general public is yet to be seen, but the trailer shows that the franchise isn’t messing around.

Mortal Kombat II will be in theaters on October 24, 2025.