2/5 Bumbling Sequel to a Surprisingly Successful Game Adaptation
  by John Nolley II (Fairfax, VA United States)
Most video game adaptations to the big screen leave much to be desired. The original Mortal Kombat film turned out to be a pleasant surprise and went on to great commercial success, with hordes of theater goers chanting, "Fatality!" and "Finish him!" Yet the producers of this sequel apparently ignored the reasons for the first film's success in crafting this bumbling follow-up film.

What's wrong? Chiefly that the film is entirely targeted at an audience of less than nine years of age. One reason the first film brought in so much money was that it became a cult success amongst high school and college students who had played the games, yet MK: Annihilation simply disregards that audience. Another problem is that the film tries to do too much by trying to show or at least mention every single character from the game, which ends up leaving many plot threads dangling (what ever happened to the good Sub-Zero, who promises his aide to the heroes only to never be seen again?)

The film picks up right where the last one left off, but immediately Johnny Cage is killed (OK, it happened in the game, too), Raiden is stripped of his immortal powers, and the Earth is being overrun by the invading hordes of bad guys (most of the latter occurs off-screen). Characters seem to come and go as the heroes fight to save the Earth, many seemingly inserted only because they appear in the game and only bloating the cast with no real impact on the plotline.

The film concludes with some seriously poor claymation of "animalities," a concept plucked from the game where the fighters become their symbollic animal. Finally the film draws to a conclusion!

There are many things the producers could have done to improve the film, from diverging slightly from the game's storyline while keeping the concepts ("Fatality!", etc.) intact to examining the interesting plots of the MK television series. In many ways the movie is just like a video game, only you as the viewer don't get to control one of the characters.

That aside, the DVD does include some nice features such as the "skip to a battle" navigation, and the movie does give a lot of good martial arts action. Maybe you'll enjoy it more than I or any of my friends did.

1/5 Oh, gimme a minute, this MK fan will tell you how bad it is.
  by Miketheratguy (Wisconsin, USA)
You know, I really liked the original Mortal Kombat. Sure they ripped off the premise from another movie, but at least it was good (Enter the Dragon). I loved the games until the 4th one and was widely known as being one of its best and most devoted followers. So maybe all this is why my then-girlfriend's idiot stoner brother told me that he heard this movie was incredible, and I excitedly went to see it.

I'm a patient guy, and I have almost never felt the urge to walk out of a movie due to boredom (Tank Girl is the only other one I recall). But MKA here is a joke. If you really feel the need to see this movie and be surprised, then be forewarned because there are spoilers ahead.

Here's one right off the bat. MKA isn't a sequel proper to the original Mortal Kombat. The original MK was, reasonably, based on the first game. A couple future characters made cameos, but that's it. So it stands to also reason that MKA would be about the second game, the one most fans widely regard to be the best. But whereas the MK film was made at the time that part 2 was yielding to part 3, a lot changed in the extra couple years it took for this film sequel. As MK the movie was leaving theaters, MK3 the game was getting kind of a lukewarm reception, and people got sicker and sicker of it by the time MK4 came out. By now the games were in 3d and the storyline had gone from basic Enter the Dragon tournaments to all out apocalyptic robot wars and sorcerors controlling the fates of a bunch of new, generic characters. Until its decent reinventing in 2002, the MK games had hit a rough and oversaturated spot and would take 5 years to bounce back.

So here in this worst time comes MKA, which skips the best chapter of the games entirely and jumps in at sort of a story junction between the 3rd and 4th games, the worst. So we have characters from all 4 games running around and interacting, which is goofy as it is, and things get worse when sense is tried to be made of it. For example, (spoiler), in maybe the first 2 minutes Johnny Cage, a main character and semi-hero of the first movie, is summarily and unceremoniously killed off. My guess for this is because he wasn't in the 3rd game.

Soon after (more spoilers. In fact, there will be several so if you continue, do at the risk of ruining the wonderful cinematic experience that is MKA), robots from game 3 come in, negating the fact that their sole purpose in the games was to hunt Sub Zero, a character killed in the first movie. Leading the attacks by these fiends and others is Shao Kahn, who in the first movie appeared as a giant demonic face in the sky and here appears as....a masculine human being.

Making things more complicated is that elder God Raiden, played by Christopher Lambert in the original, is here played by someone else and seems to not want to fight at all, as the character has gone from wizardly power god to short haired, weasely Power Rangers nerd, giving up his immortality in the process and teaching our heroes a thing or two about friendship and courage. Huh?

Sticking things out, unfortunately for them, are Robin Shou and Talisia Soto, who play central characters Liu Kang and Kitana and who've returned from the original film. This time, neither of them are allowed to do anything much more than look shocked at the stupid story developments, and Liu Kang engages in a few fights that capture none of the magic or uniqueness of the original film. And in fact this goes for any fight in this film that I care to remember. In the original, the fights were well choreographed and showcased a good selection of acrobatic and martial arts skill. Action was conveyed through close combat, good angles, and lengthy tradeoffs. And at the very least, there was a genuine moment or two where one might say "wow, that was a cool move!". This time, a lot of the action is illusional, with the camera making quick cuts and sudden moves to sort of convey that stuff is going on. There's nary an actual hand-to hand combat scene that lasts more than 30 seconds, and when you see what else was thrown in instead, you'll want to kill someone yourself.

For example, remember the character Baraka, with his beast face and bladed arms? He's here, and in fact is joined by several identical others, who assault Liu Kang with their reflective cardboard blades in a high-flying trapeze act straight out of the circus. And what about Sheeva, 4-armed character that should have been the answer to decently done Goro, 4-armed creature of the original film? Well, whereas he was conveyed through puppeteering and animatronics, here Sheeva is played by a tall woman in generic spandex who tries to look menacing and does a couple unthreatening hops with her cheesy extra special effect arms. Jax is in here and gets a lot of screen time with his new mechanical arms, which he later just takes off and throws away once Raiden teaches him that his true power is believing in himself. No, I'm serious.

The dialogue is classic as well. Sub Zero has a three minute cameo when he interrupts Scorpion's one-minute one. He does this by literally flying through the air, absolutely still in a ballerina pose, as he glides onscreen shooting an ice blast at his adversary (I'm serious- stand an action figure on one foot, lean him forward, then "fly" him through the air-that's what actually happens). Sub has the golden line of something like "It's a trap- Shao Kahn wants you to go to him. (dramatic pause)...Don't." And when Mileena double-crosses our heroes by being clearly evil the whole time, obtuse Liu Kang asks how she was able to accomplish such a feat. Her deep and shocking explanation is a wicked laugh followed by "It was so easy". Truly engaging stuff.

Things (don't) pick up later on, when Liu Kang randomly encounters Native American character Nightwolf, who explains that Liu must harness his "animality" to succeed. Anyone familiar with the MK universe knows that the "animality" was a ridiculous player rumor which supposed that the MK games contained a method of killing one's opponent by turning into an animal and committing not a fatality but an "animality". This dumb rumor was added to the 3rd game as fan service, and apparently delighted the producers of this film enough that it was actually explained as a real, feasible occurence. "Feel your animality", N.Wolf says to Liu, urging him to harness the beast within. Mr. Wolf then briefly shows Liu how to do it, complete with wobbly wolf mask, and then asks, "pretty cool, huh?"

We who haven't left the room yet are saying "no", but oh boy do we still get a fun surprise. At the end of the film, Liu Kang fights with big masculine guy (er, Shao Kahn) after Kahn has dismissed his..uh, "brother" Raiden. Against Liu, instead of actual wanted fisticuffs, we get to see the two of them feel their animality and turn into giant, god awful stupid computer-generated beasts who do combat with each other. No, I mean it. They turn into giant computer animated beasts. And we're not talking about Gollum of the Lord of the Rings here- I mean big, shiny, plasticy-looking "we know we want to make big magical creatures but don't yet have the technology to do anything but make them eye-strainingly obvious" effects. Liu Kang could reasonably have turned into a cool chinese dragon or something, but instead winds up being this big-nosed, cross eyed, dopey King Arthur thing. Shao Kahn turns into something out of greek mythology and the two have it out. Then at the last minute Shao Kahn's sorceror dad decides he's gone too far, disgraced the family name by becoming a crappy visual effect, and makes him disappear or something. Then everyone hugs, and more or less runs far, far away.

I hope that this has been an accurate rendering of what my feelings are for this film. If you want an actual review without the sarcasm, just look at it this way: It is an insult to the MK franchise and its fans, it fails as a follow-up to the fun original MK film, it fails TERRIBLY as a martial arts film, and in general it just is a dumb waste of time, an arbitrary, thrown-together cash-in sequel. Do yourself a favor and just watch the original, and if you still crave more, go play the games. And if you do insist on seeing this movie, then at the very least inject some fun into it like trying to figure out where those Baraka masks were purchased.


1/5 This movie does kill brain cells.
  by Shadowfire (College Park, MD)
It really does. You know, I noticed a small thing: the higher the rating given to this film - the more typos you will find in the review. A two-star will have a few small ones here and there, but nothing beyond "i before e" or interchangeable suffices. A three-star may miss some minor nouns and/or articles. I noticed a four-star state that "it freaked my out". A five-star reviewer stated "goo" in the review field - nothing more, just those three letters. How's that for brain damage.

Now, to the actual film. It was horrid. Take it away and burn it. Mere contemplation of handling that vile tape gives me skin rash. You know something else? I don't remember the plot. I watched the thing three days ago.

How many characters does it take to make a film horrible. By MKA's count, a LOT. This is basically what the movie does - getting out as many characters as possible. It doesn't matter that none of them ever get to say much, it does not matter that they have no personalities, just make them come out. I don't care how: make them jump out of walls, fall from ceilings, crawl out of dreams.

I just never thought that Final Showdowns in MK heaven were turn-based. Turn-base makes them look like they are just exchanging atacks. It should have never been made into a turn-based combat... IT WASN'T!

4/5 "I have my reason for liking Mortal Kombat:Annihilation."
  by Cole T. Mcclain (Stone Mountain, Ga USA)
Now, I know that Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is no where near as good as the first movie. But I still liked it, and I have five reasons for why I say so. 1: Talisa Soto, 2. Sandra Hess( Who I think is a better, and sexier Sonya Blade in this movie than Bridgette Wilson in the first movie. 3. The action sequences 4. The Special Effects. and last but not least 5. The Soundtrack. So all in all, I through Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was pretty good.

1/5 Sequels suck big time!
  by Borjan Komarica (Zagreb, Croatia)
This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The first one was "tongue-in-cheek" kung-fu/action that even the makers didn't take seriously. The actors in the original Mortal Kombat looked goofy, but it was obvious they were having a good time. Here they just came for their paycheck.

And if you thought there was no story in the first one, you will not be able to sit through the sequel... Dumb, stupid, unfunny!

"Annhilation" is obviously solely a producers' idea to milk more money from us. Don't let them!