Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)

The people claiming that this movie is the worst film ever made are simply people who are not fans of martial arts or martial arts films, and who wouldn't be able to distinguish between a Hollywood film with actors who know no martial arts with fight scenes comprised of closeups, and a martial arts film comprised of real martial artists showcasing real talent. The film is not amazing, the acting isn't amazing, the plot isn't amazing, the directing isn't amazing etc. However to anyone who enjoys martial arts there are real talented people in this film and a few nice martial arts moves to see. Sandra Hess European karate champion as Sonya Blade, Robin Shou Wu Shu gold medal winner in various competitions in China, JJ Perry 5th degree taekwando and 2nd degree hapkido blackbelt etc.. There are not as many good martial arts moments as a good deal of other martial arts films, the film could have gotten a lot more out of all of this talent that's for sure, however there are still talented martial artists in this film and there are one or two nice moves to sit and watch for any true martial arts fan.

Fmovies: 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.

By all that's Holy! A film that made me cringe the whole way through! Dear Lord how the studio bosses must have laughed as they counted the money that they made off this turkey. Now, I thought the first MK was an OK film, great soundtrack, OK acting and plenty of fighting. A good no-brainer actioner. But this....this....defies belief.

How on Earth can you get such a bunch of wooden actors together and still manage to hide all the strings? It comes to something when you look at a film and can honestly say the best actor in it is Brian Thompson! The actors playing the bad guys overacted so awfully it was painful to watch, expecially the centaur guy. He exuded ham to a level I've not seen before.

The special effects were truly special, but only in a "special needs" kind of way. Looks like they were lifted straight from the video game itself. Laugh as you watch something resembling a dragon perform martial arts very badly. Laugh as Brian Thompson turns into a......thing. Laugh at the terrible lack of detail in it all. Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh and laugh again, right up until they slap the straightjacket on you and cart you off to the loony bin. Because only someone truly demented would want to sit through this terrible, terrible film.

Eh? What's that Doc? Yes, I know I sat through it. But it was all in the name of science, you see. I was doing research. By the way, you couldn't loosen this jacket a bit, could you?

Anyway, as I say, the best actor was Brian Thompson. Only he saved it from getting a 1, but even then, the rest prevented it from getting any more than a 2.

Avoid it if you value your sanity!

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation fmovies. I have been a big fan of MK since the beginning, although I must admit I lost interest in the game series after part III.

Buying MK Deception this past Christmas renewed my interest in the series.

This movie was crap and I can't believe I bought this mess.

Good thing I found it for 9.99 at the used bin, so I wasn't out of much.

I was expecting to see a REAL sequel to the first movie, which I found fairly entertaining.

I thought the first film was very good and does the game upon which it is based some justice.

Not the case with MKA.

The first problem is that they tried to fuse too much of MK2 with MK3.

Then, if you're going to replace a character with another actor (Christopher Lambert), then at least make sure the new actor does a batter job than the first. The first Raiden was a hard-ass, and you knew not to mess with him. The second Raiden was a wuss and every time we saw him he was going through a wall.

Weak portrayals of major MK characters was another flaw.

The actress who portrayed Sonya Blade was nowhere near as good as Bridgette Wilson (the first Sonya).

Same could be said with Cage (Linden Ashby).

What was the point of even having Ermac and Rain in the movie if they weren't going to be referred to? A very weak portrayal of Sindel, Kitana's mother and the actress who played her isn't fit to act in soap operas.

Line example: Kitana: "My mother is dead." Sindel: "As will be her daughter!" Gimmie a break! Stick with the first.

The problem with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation isn't that it's stupid, with no significant plot, dialogue or characters. That is undebatably true of Annihilation, but that was also true with the first Mortal Kombat movie, and that was a great movie. The problem is the HUGE let down in the martial arts and special effects scenes. MK had some terrific fight scenes, such as the brilliant Cage/Scorpion fight in the forest, the great Liu Kang/SubZero fight, and the cool finale with Shang Tsung. Annihilation didn't have any fight scenes up to the quality of those three, many of the fight scenes made no sense, and the finale was horrible. In addition, some things in Annihilation I would really like an explanation for:

• Why did Raiden dress up like Aladdin half way through the movie? Was looking like a complete dork part of becoming mortal? And where was Christopher Lambert, anyway?

• What was the third test? Where did that Wolf-guy go? What happened to Sub-Zero?

• Why did they do that stupid thing with Jax' bionic arms? Stupid movies should admit they are stupid movies. Stupid movies which try to have serious elemends become bad movies.

• Same deal with Katana's mother.

• What was point of that huge monster that came out of nowhere to attack Sonya, then immediately went back to it's whole when Jax hit it on the head? Was it a whack-a-mole?

• How is it that Sonya and Jade began to fight IN A DESERT and they immediately fell into a mud pit?

• Why did Smoke maticulously break every window in that random building before fighting Sonya and Jax?

• What was the point of having Liu Kang turn into a dragon? He just turned into a human again, without having done anything effective as a dragon. How was that useful?

• Why didn't they spend more then $80 on the special effects for that dragon? I could do better then that with miniatures and clay animation.

• How is it that this movie could have been made so badly, with such bad cinematography and such pathetic martial arts effects, after the first one was so good?

I have been a huge fan of the MK videogames practically since the beginning, and I really enjoyed the first Mortal Kombat movie. It wasn't a work of art, but it was fun, funny, colorful and had some great fight scenes. Anihilation, though, suffers from an extreme case of sequelitis, with about half of the characters re-cast, all of which were a step down, a dumb story line, wooden acting, effects that were less advanced than the ones in the first movie, and a feeling of blah pervading the whole thing. Perhaps the worst thing is the fight at the end with the two really bad CG "animalities", a cheesy idea from the game that should have stayed in the game. Liu Kang's dragon looked like a pear with wings and a tail. Definitely avoid this one if you wish to keep your glowing memories of the arcade game intact.