'Polar' Trailer: Mads Mikkelsen Gets His Own 'John Wick' Style Action Flick For Netflix

Here's a movie for you: Mads Mikkelsen, with a mustache and an eye-patch, goes around shooting people. Oh, and at one point, he uses a gun controlled by laser-pointer fingers. What more do you need? All of that and more happens in the Polar trailer. The film, from Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund (who also has Lords of Chaos coming out this year), looks heavily inspired by John Wick, and I'm not complaining. Watch the trailer below.

First Arctic and now Polar? 2019 is going to be a cold year for Mads Mikkelsen. The once and future Hannibal Lecter leads the Netflix film, in which he plays a retired assassin who is drawn back into the game when younger assassins come gunning for him. Vanessa Hudgens is also there, playing Mikkelsen's friendly neighbor. Best of all: Mikkelsen's character is named Duncan Vizla, aka The Black Kaiser. I'm sold!

The over-stylized look of the film, mixed with the "assassin comes out of retirement" plot are clearly pulled directly from John Wick, and that's fine. More action movies should use John Wick as a blueprint and go wild. I doubt Polar will be as good as the Wick films – I get a distinct "Direct-To-VOD" vibe from this trailer – but as a Mikkelsen fan, I'm all-in on watching him as the lead in an action film. Mikkelsen has been acting for quite some time, but his big American break in Casino Royale ended up getting him typecast in villain roles. I like when he occasionally plays a heroic character for a change.

Polar is based on the graphic novel Polar: Came From the Cold by Víctor Santos, and also features Katheryn Winnick and Matt Lucas. The film also boasts a soundtrack from Deadmau5, so it has that going for it. It's one of 90 original movies Netflix hopes to release this year, because they're unstoppable and can pretty much do whatever they want. And hey, maybe sooner or later they'll give us a trailer for The Irishman. That would be nice.

Look for Polar on Netflix January 25, 2019.

The world's top assassin, Duncan Vizla, aka The Black Kaiser (Mads Mikkelsen), is settling into retirement when his former employer marks him as a liability to the firm. Against his will, he finds himself back in the game going head to head with an army of younger, faster, ruthless killers who will stop at nothing to have him silenced.