Why Mortal Kombat Fans Were Beyond Confused About Cole's Personal Life
2021 saw one of the most beloved video game franchises of all time return to the big screen: "Mortal Kombat." Following the lackluster attempts to bring the "MK" series to the movies back in the mid-1990s, director Simon McQuoid made it his mission to give fans the adaptation they deserved. Packed with iconic characters like Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim), Mileena (Sisi Stringer), and Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), plenty of action, and some appropriately gory brutalities, it supplied audiences with everything they'd hoped for in a "Mortal Kombat" movie and a little extra for good measure.
Instead of focusing solely on the established "Mortal Kombat" roster, the 2021 film introduced fans to a brand new combatant named Cole Young (Lewis Tan). An experienced mixed martial artist whose best years are behind him, Young suddenly finds himself in a fight for survival. The Outworld sorcerer Shang Tsung (Chin Han) sends his underlings to kill Earthrealms champions ahead of the Mortal Kombat tournament, which Young had no idea he was even a part of. Nevertheless, he musters his courage and trains hard to help defeat the forces of evil.
Throughout "Mortal Kombat," we learn who Cole Young really is, his lineage, and his importance in the overall narrative. However, that doesn't mean that fans weren't a tad confused about this detail regarding his personal life.
Young's family left some fans confused
Aside from keeping himself alive and trying to unlock his arcana, Cole Young fights for another reason in "Mortal Kombat." He wants to keep the rest of his family, his wife Allison (Laura Brent) and daughter Emily (Matilda Kimber), safe from the dangers of Shang Tsung's forces. Although, as evidenced by a comment from Redditor u/GreenGemsOmally, the film didn't do a great job explaining how they were all related. "I literally didn't realize that the two girls were supposed to be wife and child until late in the movie. I thought girlfriend and little sister," they wrote, prompting many others to voice similar thoughts from when they first watched the movie.
As other Reddit users explained, the chemistry between the Young family actors and their physical appearances, making them appear different ages than they actually are, led to this confusion. One has to imagine that this miscommunication overshadowed much of these folks' enjoyment of the story. Thankfully, according to writer Jeremy Slater, he and the team working on the sequel have heard all forms of fan feedback and taken it to heart. "I think they definitely learned some lessons the last time around in terms of, 'Here's the stuff fans responded to, and here's what people liked out of the movie, and here's the stuff that didn't work out as well as we hoped,'" Slater told The Direct.
Based on Jeremy Slater's comments, one can only hope that when "Mortal Kombat 2" finally arrives, it'll convey certain points to the audience much better and avoid confusing fans as its predecessor did with the Young family.