Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

[Andrew]

This picks up where the first one ended.  Except for the odd character (like Liu Kang and Kitana, seemingly the only two main ones), everyone is played by a different actor.  The biggest and most noticeable change was Christopher Lambert.  Rayden is played by...some other guy, who has been in a lot of stuff, but as a living kung fu god, he sucks.

In general, everything accomplished in the first movie was useless.  Shao Kahn opens a portal between his world and the Earth, releasing lots of ninja who proceed to destroy our world.  When you see the evil fighters you begin to wonder how exactly they defeated any modern military force.  Well, except for the two robot warriors that can shoot missiles or flying mines.  Maybe those could have done some damage before a SMAW took them out.

To stop Shao Kahn, Rayden tasks the fighters (Johnny Cage dies immediately - possibly the only thing the movie did right) with learning  more and improving their skills.  Then they split up.  Liu Kang travels to the American Southwest to learn a fighting style from a fighter called "Nightwolf."  This involves two barely developed tests and a random Asian Woman showing up.  Kitana is MIA, because she was captured by the evil forces.  Oh, and Kitana's mother shows up, played by the woman who was Lash in "Oblivion."  She still looks good and I kept wishing they had given her a whip.

The fight scenes are terrible.  Awful.  Not even close to the original film.  Also, the dialog and some of the script must have been written by a thirteen-year-old.  Honestly the stupid, "You must become a family and rely on your own skills" bits remind me of stuff that we wrote way back in high school when we played at making movies.

Still, one of my biggest complaints was Rayden.  I am guessing that Christopher Lambert chose not the reprise the role after reading the script.  That is impressive.  He appeared in "Beowulf" with no problems.  I cannot think of a single fight that was entertaining.

Looking back, I am going to say that this is a skull.

[KYGOTC]

I saw the first one. I really liked it with the exeption of the writing and all of the ninjas being bad guys. Ive never seen the second one, but I heard it sux. Id really like to see it anyway, As long as its not boring. Has anyone ever seen the live action tv show?

[ghouck]

remind me of stuff that we wrote way back in high school when we played at making movies

That's , , , , kinda scarey. . . .

[Ash]

I remember being so excited to see this when it was released in theaters years ago.
My buddy Chris & I went and it was all we could do to stop ourselves from walking out.

This is one movie that never should have been made.  Big thumbs down.   

[Dr. Whom]

. Has anyone ever seen the live action tv show?

Yes. Stay away from it. Really.

[Mr. DS]

This film made me want to rip my hair out when I saw it in the theaters...

Where the film fails miserably is in the "too many friggin' characters" department.   At one point, one of the baddies mention they took "Kabal" and "Stryker" under capture.  These are both characters in MK3 the video game.  They are never seen nor heard from in the movie which I'm sure will make non-game players scratch their head. 

Plot wise, it seems they took the plot line of third video game, put it in a blender with some tripe and served it on the big screen.  The new Rayden is played by the same guy who played Ajax in The Warriors.  However in The Warriors, he fit the role.  In this one...um yeah...nice job casting dept.

Is it me or did the script deliberately try to make Jax sound urban with his dialog.  Not "urban" in a DMX or 50-Cent way but more of a Randy Jackson from American Idol way.  Hes constantly spouting off rhetoric like "yeah, thats what im-talkin-a-bout".  Urban slang that went out 5 years before hand.  It seems like they try to fit a Will Smith stereotype.

The Nightwolf thing is utter garbage.  Another idiotic reference to the game, animality which non-gamers would not get.  Thats the big thing with this film, at least the first one you didn't really need to know a lot about the game to enjoy it.  MKA kept bringing up obscure game references and basically put out a movie that bored fans of the game and non-fans as well.   
 

[daveblackeye15]

In Mortal Kombat 3, Shao Khan picks his bride, someone from the Earth relm. He was allowed to open a portal for that reason to get, thus he found a loophole to start invading Earth.

Of course they didn't say ANYTHING about that in the movie but I think that's what they were going for.

[Andrew]

Well, with the "animality" you suddenly have Kahn turning into a hydra and Liu Kang turning into a small dragon and fighting.  The CGI for that was just a little better than the Hell scenes from "Spawn."

They should have cut down on the number of different scenes and devoted more time to a few of them.  It seemed like all the characters did was spend the whole movie (I actually typed "game" vice "movie" at first) running from location to location.  And, yeah, Jax's lines were terrible.  Again - was this written by a thirteen year-old?

[nada]

I've tried to watch this twice but could never stay awake...

[Ash]

Watch some fight scenes from MK2:

I'm pretty sure a kick from a cyborg or Shao Khan would break Liu Kang's ribs
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HacSKnnvJIY

One thing I always hated was that stupid MK techno theme song.
Don't get me wrong, I like techno and dance music, but that song sounds like it was made by and for 12 year olds.
That "Uh uh...Uh uh uh uh..Uh Uh" sound in it always drove me nuts.  

[Neville]

OMG! That really looked / sounded moronic. I need to watch this movie someday. As for the song, it's so bad I love it somehow.

C'on, lets chant:

Mortal Kombaaaaaaaaaat!!!!!

[Dr. Whom]

Ash, I never realised that ninjas have to do saltos whenever possible.

I do have Mortal Kombat: Conquest, which has the same set up as the TV series. It is one of the few movies where I gave up after 20 minutes. The only bright point is that the evil henchwomen wear skimpy tightfiting costumes, but all the rest is just unrelieved boredom. I'd rather watch Final Fantasy, the spirits within any day.

[Ted C]

As utterly horrible as this movie was with its dreadful script, direction, choreography, and effects, seeing Sandra Hess in a tank-top still puts a smile on my face.

[trekgeezer]

The biggest and most noticeable change was Christopher Lambert.  Rayden is played by...some other guy, who has been in a lot of stuff, but as a living kung fu god, he sucks.

Andrew, I'm surprised you don't know James Remar's name. He has been in a lot of stuff inclcuding The Warriors and 48 hours (he's the guy Eddie Murphy was after).  You're right though, he was woefully cast as Rayden.

[Andrew]

Andrew, I'm surprised you don't know James Remar's name. He has been in a lot of stuff inclcuding The Warriors and 48 hours (he's the guy Eddie Murphy was after).  You're right though, he was woefully cast as Rayden.

I knew him, but I've never been a fan of his work.  He just comes across as sort of "blah" to me.  In this case, he was an exceptionally awful choice for Rayden.