Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

"Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" is an Action - Fantasy movie and the sequel of "Mortal Kombat", in which we watch some martial arts warriors trying to save the Earth by an invasion but they have only six days to do it.

I have to admit that since I had already watched the previous movie I had high expectations by this one and unfortunately I was disappointed by it. I did not like that Christopher Lambert was changed by James Remar on the role of Lord Raiden and the visual effects which were simply horrible. The direction which was made by John R. Leonetti, it was below average and I believe that he did not reach his potential. To sum up, I have to say that "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" is not a good movie and even if you are a fan of "Mortal Kombat" I am sure that you will be disappointed by it.

This is easily one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Painfully bad acting, the replacing of actors from the first (wise move on those actors parts) Too many charcters for to short of time. They would need like 3 hours at least for all the MK charcters, and god help us all if they ever get that much time for one of these movies. Just Horrible.

Robin Shou and Talisa Soto return but everybody else is gone. This follows directly from the original movie. Outworld emperor Shao Kahn opens a portal to Earthrealm. He is joined by Kitana's resurrected mother, Queen Sindel. Johnny Cage is immediately killed off and the emperor promises to conquer Earth in six days.

The fun of the original is gone. It's an obvious step down when the movie opens with so many of the original actors missing. Even the special effects take a giant step down. This is a movie made by people with no foresight for franchise building. This is about making a few quick bucks and getting out. They use scraps and leftovers from the first movie. It's bad from start to finish although it does have a fight between Scorpion and Sub-Zero. It's still not good.

I must admit that I quite enjoyed the first film. Not the best martial arts flick in the world, but by no means the worst. However, compared to this, its a damn masterpiece!

1) There are WAAAAAY too many characters. In the first, you had the four heroes (Cage, Sonya, Kang, and Raiden), and about five villains (Kahn, Kano, Sub-zero, Scorpion, and Goro). This meant that at least some amount of time could be spent building on characters. Thus, before we see Sub zero,Goro and scorpion fight, we know who they are , and their reputations. This doesnt happen with a single character in MK:A because it is too busy trying to throw as many characters from the games at you as possible that it often doesnt even have time to mention who they are (e.g. Smoke, Cyrax, Rain, Baraka, Mileena).

2) It's had a $30 million budget, yet seems to have spent on completely the wrong things. I would have much rather they had halved their SFX budget and hired a decent fight choreographer. Put it this way: Iron Monkey cost less than $4 (if I remember correctly) for the entire film, and there isnt a single fight in MK:A that comes close to the worst in that film, which leads on to the next point.

3) The direction is TERRIBLE!! Especially during the fights!!! Watch any decent fight sequence, and generally the cuts are kept to a minimum. It both makes the fight easier to follow, and shows off the skill of the participants more. Its rare in this film that any flow between moves occurs without cuts. During one move, there are actually about five cuts!! No cuts would have looked much better!!

4) Its hard to decide which is worse, the script, or the acting.

5) The SFX heavy final battle is perhaps the lamest thing I have ever seen.

There are people who will defend this film saying that "its just fun!", or "Its not meant to be deep and meaningful or anything". Which works for some films. And those films can be fun. Or not deep and meaningful, but still enjoyable. This isnt. Its bad. It hasnt got one redeeming feature that I can think of. Possibly the worst film. Ever.

I had seen bits n pieces of it in the early 2k on a cable tv channel.

Saw the entire movie recently on a fast forward mode.

This is the second installment in the Mortal Kombat film series based on the video game and the story picks up immediately after the last film ended.

While the first part was at least entertaining, this one is sheer lousy.

We have James Remar's body double doing all the wire fu stunts and unlike Christopher Lambert, James Remar got bored with his long hair n white monk gown. He does a crop cut n wears a designer waist coat n military boots.

I found Sandra Hess as Sonya Blade more attractive than the previous part's gal.

Talisa Soto who played Kitana is only 4 years younger to Musetta Vander who played Kitana's mother. I found Musetta more attractive than Talisa.

Brian Thompson as the main villain is no match to Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.