The fate of the Earthrealm is decided every generation in a tournament called Mortal Kombat. A thunder god by the name of Raiden(Christopher Lambert) represents the earth, by leading his fighters into battle. They are to confront the Emperor of Outworlds finest warriors, who are led by the demon sorcerer Shang Tsung(Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa).
In order to invade the Earthrealm, Outworld must win ten straight tournaments, and they've already won nine, with this tournament being the tenth. Liu Kang(Robin Shou) along with fellow combatants Johnny Cage(Linden Ashby) & Sonya Blade(Bridgette Wilson), enter the tournament with little to no knowledge on what is exactly at stake. When they finally realize it, they have only a short time to prepare for what awaits them.
Previous Film:
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation:
After the events of the previous tournament, Liu Kang and his friends victory over Shang Tsung is very short-lived. The Emperor of Outworld Shao Khan(Brian Thompson) together with his generals invades the Earthrealm despite losing the tournament. Khan breaks the sacred rules and the casualties begin early. The two realms begin to merge causing global destruction to the Earth. Liu Kang and his companions only have six days to prevent the merger from being complete. The merger of realms is called Annihilation.-summary
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is a martial arts fantasy, which is based on the very popular video game. The movie is directed by John R. Leonetti, and it completely skips events from the videogame Mortal Kombat 2. It instead uses the storyline, plus combines elements from Mortal Kombat 3, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, and Mortal Kombat 4. The writers try to cram as many characters and story elements from these three games as possible. But in my view, the story is very far from the films downfall. It's the terrible special effects, very bad fight choreography, bad acting, and characters serving no purpose only to die in battle. Unlike its predecessor, this film caters too much to fans of the game. This isn't really a problem for me being a fan. I could have gotten into the story, if only the fights at the very least had been better.
Robin Shou reprises his role as Liu Kang along with Talisa Soto as Kitana. Along with the surviving fighters, they must find a way to escape Khan's Extermination Squads, and come up with a plan to prevent Annihilation. Minus the two protagonist, the entire cast is brand new. Sandra Hess in my view is a much better Sonya Blade than the previous girl concerning athleticism. She also appears to be a much better martial artist. There's some type of life in Sonya's fight scenes this time around. However, I feel Bridgette Wilson was the better actor, and had a certain flair to her character. This also goes for Raiden, who is now played by James Remar. Although more physically fit, he completely lacks the charisma and mystery Christopher Lambert brought to the character. All of the new characters are lacking that "it" factor to make them slightly interesting, and most of them aren't convincing in their roles either. I will give credit to the characters appearances. They almost completely resemble their videogame counterparts.
The fight scenes were the biggest disappointment. There were far too many camera shifts during the action. This was obviously meant to conceal just how bad some of these people are concerning martial arts. The action was very slow at times and incredibly lazy. This mainly concerned the women, with Queen Sindel(Musetta Vander) being the most notable. It was very clear that martial arts wasn't her thing. If she really is a trained martial artist, then I doubt she made it pass yellow belt and that's being kind. This time around, although the soundtrack is once again very good, it does very little to help the fight scenes. This is mainly because most of the actors really aren't good to begin with. The action scenes a lot of the time are that bad.
This is a boring film, and it almost appears the director made it terrible on purpose. Characters appear and disappear as quick as they came. On top of that, this film contains some of the worst dialogue. It actually provides a few laughs, but not when it's suppose to. I also get goose bumps thinking about the final battle and ending. I mean wow, words escape me for the moment.
It's sad really, and I'm not only talking about how the film turned out. I say it's sad because anyone who enjoyed the original Mortal Kombat is going to let curiosity take over. The first one ends with an open ending, and this terrible sequel closes the chapter. I can only recommend this to straight die hard fans(like me), the so bad it's good crowd, and for completion sake. I set my expectations very low, when coming into this film again for the first time in over a decade, and it still comes as a shock. This is truly bottom of the barrel here folks, and the scary thing is. There's actually worst out there. The movie has a 95 minute runtime.
Pros:
-Pretty faithful to source material
-Good music
Cons:
-Very poor execution
-Very poor fights
-Even worst special effects
