Review of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) by William E — 19 Nov 2010

How did they mess up so bad with this sequel? The difference in quility in every sense of the word from this movie and the original is astounding. Everything is just a giant step in the wrong direction with this one. The acting, plot, special effects, costume design, etc. I could go on forever. At the end of the day we all know this film was only made to capitalize on the success of the previous film anyway. Although I guess one could say the original movie was just capitalizing on the success of the video game, but at least they did it tastefully. This sequel lacks all the subtle translations that the original had in adapting the game to a movie. Instead it shamelssly just tries to cram in every recognizable MK character it can without any real reason for them to be there.

The story picks up literally seconds after the ending of the last movie. There's really not much to explain though as the plot is so damn thin. Basically everything that the heroes accomplished in the original was pointless as a new bad guy Shao Kahn (Brian Thompson) shows up to end mankind by keeping a portal open for six days. There's a bunch of other little sub-plots too like the one between Princess Kitana (Talisa Soto) and Sindel (Musetta Vander) being mother and daughter. Hardcore fans of the games will probably get these but most people will just be left feeling confused. The whole movie basically boils down to good vs. evil with good predictably winning in the end.

Almost the whole cast has been changed from the original. The only returning actors are Robin Shou as Liu Kang and Talisa Soto as Kitana. The rest of the cast is made up of even more unknown actors than the original, but at least the original cast was decent. These people couldn't act if their life depended on it. I hate the guy they got to replace Raiden he's such a bad actor, and half way through the movie they decided he shouldn't even be recognizable as an MK character and changed his look completely for some reason. Johnny Cage is killed off in the first five minutes of the movie so talking about the actor who portrayed him is pointless. Former American gladiator Lynn "Red" Williams plays Jax and although he has the right look, his acting needs some serious work. Sandra Hess as Sonya Blade was decent but only because she fits the role better than the original actress who played her.

Other popular MK characters jump in and out through out the film but they serve no purpose to the plot. Most of them are killed off so quick that you didn't even get a chance to figure out who it was first anyway. They all look really stupid too, they fucked up the costumes so bad on this film. They all look like they're wearing those cheap Halloween costumes that little kids wear to go trick or treating, so cartoony. Why didn't they just do what they did in the original? The costumes were realistic and believable but you could still tell who each character was. Even as a kid when I watched this I thought is was so corny looking.

Then there's the fight scenes and special effects. So lame. Unlike the first film this one DID make the mistake that most movies at that time did, they overdid everything. The fights rely too heavily on CG effects and wires and not enough on good choreography. All the fight scenes are too short anyway. No good ones come to mind, except maybe the great mud wrestling scene between Sonya and Mileena. The final showdown ends up being the worst in the movie. They decided to take a move from the game and put it in the movie, the only problem was their execution sucked. In the game as I'm sure most people are aware of you can perform "Fatalities" to kill your opponents. MK3 (the game) introduced something called "Animalities" where you could turn into an animal and kill your opponent. The movie tried to do this and failed horribly. In the final fight Liu Kang turns into a giant CG dragon and Shao Kahn turns into a giant CG... something. I don't even know what to call it, some three headed monster, but either way it looks terrible.

I'm usually a pretty generous reviewer but this movie just sucked. I know I shouldn't have expected much from a sequel to a video game based movie but I didn't think it would that bad. Everything that was good about the original, this one is completely void of. The only redeeming factor of this film is getting to see (albeit briefly) your favorite MK characters on screen, and maybe that mud wrestling scene I mentioned earlier. Other than that this movie is a giant waste of time and one of the few films that actually disappointed me as a kid. Seriously even if you are a fan of the video games I can't recommend checking this out, in fact it would probably just be more disappointing if you are an MK fan. Just try and forget it was ever made.