Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Beautiful, moving film.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Ed Boon, one of the creators of the Mortal Kombat video game, calls this the "worst moment" in the history of the franchise. Coming from someone who loved the original film and has played every one of the games, I agree.Christopher Lambert was seen as one of the highlights of the last film. He's gone, replaced by James Remar (The Warriors). I always dislike whitewashing in movies, but Lambert was so game in his scenes and such an integral part of getting the last film made (Lambert's great attitude calmed director Paul W. S. Anderson as he worked on his first big movie. While the highest salary in the film, he paid his own way to go to Thailand and do all of his own scenes for basically free there, just to ensure the movie looked better. Plus, he paid for the wrap party.).In fact, only Liu Kang (Robin Shou) and Kitana (Talisa Soto) are played by the same actors from the previous film. Robin Cooke, who played Reptile, plays Sub Zero here, with that fighter gaining a much larger role.Did you like Johnny Cage last time? Lots of people did. Bad news - he's killed seconds into this new film to get over new bad guy Shao Khan. He's opened a portal from Outrealm to Earth (hey wait - didn't we just fight a tournament to stop that from happening?) and has brought back his queen (and Kitana's mother) Sindel back from the dead.Sonya Blade (now played by Sandra Hess, who played the cave girl in Encino Man) brings in her partner Jax and they immediately battle Cyrax and Mileena. Then there's Nightwolf (played by Litefoot, the Native American who also portrayed Little Bear in The Indian in the Cupboard), a shaman who will guide Liu Kang and Kitana toward defeating Shao Khan. Another fight against Smoke and Scorpion, with the help of Sub Zero, happens and Kitana gets kidnapped.Raiden meets with the Edger Gods, who don't really give any answers. I have several questions for them. Like, why are we fighting Shao Khan when we won a tournament to stop things like this from happening? And why is there a fight every ten seconds instead of character development like the first film? Or why didn't you bring back the actors we liked in these roles? And why doesn't the "Toasty!" guy show up?Nightwolf makes Liu Kang pass several trials to gain the power of Animality, which allows him to shapeshift into a new form. He must pass the self-esteem and focus trial. The trial of temptation, where Jade tries to get in his karate pants. And there's a third test, but we never get to it! One assumes that he passes it, as we'll see in the finale.Raiden gives up his immortality to fight for Earth, which means that he needs to cut off his hair. Jade is a double agent and while the good guys rescue Kitana, they still face tough odds. Raiden reveals that Shao Khan is his brother and their father, Shinook, is favoring his evil sibling. After a big battle, Raiden is killed at the hands of that very same brother.Another lengthy fight sequence happens, with Motaro, Ermac, Sindel and even Noob Saibot all showing up.Liu Kang then shows what an Animality is by turning into a poorly rendered dragon in a scene that makes this movie seem more dated than the 1995 original. Luckily, the Elder Gods discover the shenanigans afoot and declare another round of Mortal Kombat.Aren't you glad we have Liu Kang on our side? He defeats Shao Kahn and allows Raiden to return as the Earth realm wins again.Director John R. Leonetti would go on to be the cinematographer for The Scorpion King, I Know Who Killed Me, The Conjuring and The Insidious series before directing Annabelle and Wish Upon. He's done great work in those films, but this film feels so much cheaper than the original. It's weird, because that film succeeded because it transcended it's junk food origins while the sequel just piles way too much on.Original directed Paul W.S. Anderson decided to do Event Horizon instead of this film. He hated the results and that's why he's stayed close to the Resident Evil franchise throughout its sequels.It's hard to hate a movie where alien monsters battle ninjas, so if you accept this one as goofy chop socky fun, it's fine. But when compared to the original - and with the rich mythology of the Mortal Kombat video games at its fingertips - this one really suffers. There have been rumors of a franchise reboot for years, including two online series. Here's hoping the next one recaptures the first film's magic.

Cinema standards reach a new low with this sequel to MORTAL KOMBAT, a film which really wasn't that good in the first place to deserve a sequel. Dispensing with a plot altogether (aside from some almost soap-like family shenanigans involving a family of gods), MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION offers up loads of dodgy CGI effects work and a constant stream of action enlivened by loud, stupid music to appeal to the young teenage crowd. Yes, it's stupid to the extreme, unnecessarily violent, and also unintentionally funny with it.Opening with the "shocking" demise of Johnny Cage, a lead in the first film, this movie pits a diverse bunch of (mainly new) heroes against monsters, Elder Gods, and a weird bunch of ninja-types who fall from the sky in flames for some unknown reason. Aside from a few scenes set in a quarry, almost every backdrop in the movie is computer generated which makes you feel like you're watching some VR flick or something, not the intended effect I'm sure. So we have our characters traipsing around various locations, arguing, cracking dumb jokes, and fighting and killing lots of bad guys. Big deal.Said bad guys include a guy in a poor rubber monster mask who gets burned alive in a pit of flames, a woman with four arms, a centaur, a robot guy who fires explosives from his chest, and some recurring characters from the original who don't last long. The action scenes are very silly indeed, with characters seemingly unable to walk normally anymore - instead they have to leap and do acrobatics to move from one place to another. I guess the result is supposed to look "cool" but I found it baffling. Lots of martial arts routines are used but each and every fight is sub standard compared to the majority of martial arts flicks you'll see.The costume design is flamboyant and colourful on the eye, but it's a shame that the actors fail to fill them out very well. Robin Shou returns as Liu Kang, the heroic lead Bruce Lee-wannabe dude, but let's face it, he's wooden in the extreme. The producers couldn't even afford Christopher Lambert to reprise his role as Rayden (and when you can't afford Lambert you KNOW you're in trouble!), so instead dependable genre staple James Remar appears to put in a boring performance. The only other actor of note is Brian Thompson, a hulking guy who you may recognise from a bunch of flicks; for instance, he played the mean bad guy in COBRA. Somebody decided he should be bald for this film, but instead of making him look more terrifying, the result makes him look bald! The final involves characters turning into cheap CGI monsters, one of them ripping off the Hydra in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, and the effect is startlingly funny. MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION - a rubbish film to be sure, but kind of amusing in a dumb way nonetheless.

This sequel to the first Mortal Kombat is pretty good, but I did not like it that Johnny Cage had to die at the beginning. He's one of the very important characters in the Mortal Kombat franchise. Now this sequel includes more characters from the franchise and it also includes the return of Sub-Zero and Scorpion. Of course they did appear only for a couple of minutes but still it was worth seeing them in this. In this movie Liu Kang has to fight Shao Khan Raiden's brother in order to save the world and all other realms. With the help of Sonya, Jax, Katana and Raiden they defeat Shao Khan and the world is saved. As for Raiden he becomes one of the Elder Gods. Now there are people on here who don't like this as much as the first one but I say its a pretty fair sequel and still worth watching.

A group of martial arts warriors have only six days to save the Earth from an extra-dimensional invasion.This film sits on IMDb proudly displaying its "turkey" status. (There should actually be a symbol on there to signify turkeys.) And with good reason. The plot is even thinner the second time around and there are scenes that rely much too heavily on CGI... with less-than-perfect animation.So why did I give it a 5, higher than a typical turkey vote of 2 or 3? Because it still has a fun aspect to it, especially looking back now almost 20 years later. I can appreciate the music (KMFDM, Rammstein) and bask in the joy that a more or less plot less game was made into multiple movies. Still makes more sense than that Mario Brothers movie.