Annihilating Expectations
Mortal Kombat from 1995, directed by Paul Anderson, was a pretty good movie, all in all. In fact, I would call it one of the better videogame movies to date, and I would attribute most of that to the fight scenes. Two years later, John Leonetti (Scorpion King, Piranha) directed the second movie, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. It doesn’t hold a candle to the first movie, and will make even the most hardcore MK fans blush, or cringe, in embarrassment.
Where the first MK movie saw roughly the story and characters from the first MK game, Annihilation brings in characters from MK II, III, and to a minor degree, MK IV. Amongst these are Shao Kahn (Brian Thompson), Sindel (Musetta Vander), Jade (Irina Pantaeva), Motaro (Deron McBee), and around eight others. As people who watched Spider-Man 3 know, trying to introduce this many major characters can be a severe challenge and a potentially ‘dangerous’ thing to do. It’s that very problem that is one of several reasons why Annihilation is such a bad movie; nearly every one of these new characters has such a minor or pointless role that they simply should not have been introduced in the first place.
Only two of the original actors from the first movie — Robin Shou as Liu Kang and Talisa Soto as Kitana — return. Rayden, formerly Christopher Lambert, is now played by James Remar (Dexter), whose career, on a side note, has developed nicely. In any case, the acting is pretty woeful — and the script, choreography, and camera work do nothing to help. The story has Liu Kang, Sonya, Jax, Kitana, and Rayden set to defend Earth from an impending doom that is brought upon Shao Kahn and his father Shinnok. Betraying the Elder Gods, they have caused the outworld to merge with Earth realm, a process that takes six days. Only by killing Shao Kahn can the process to reversed, but to get to him they will have to face a multitude of other Kombatants such as Sindel, Motaro, Smoke, Scorpion and so forth.
So, as with the original Mortal Kombat, most of the film is about getting from one fight to the next. Getting from fight to fight is a lot more painful to watch than the first movie though, and worse yet, the actual fights themselves are entirely forgettable. Whether it’s the cameras zooming in too close or another bad scene where a character flies through a poorly constructed and cheap looking brick wall, the fights are a joke. Nevermind the bad sets, costumes, and scenes like with Rayden late in the film where you can plainly see a stunt double in use — the actual choreography is some of the worst I have seen in a martial arts movie. Most fights involve many out of place jumping and leaping and spinning movies and use of characters’ special moves. Everything about the fights seems forced and unnatural, whereas in the first film the fights flowed much, much smoother. And the music was much, much cooler and better suited.
At the end of the day, I can’t really find anything redeeming about this film. A sequel was inevitable and welcomed after the first film, and it’s good to see Robin Shou, who I always thought was a capable actor and martial arts talent, return. But Annihilation just got it all wrong and I don’t think even the most passionate, or casual fan (take your pick) will find it worth their ninety minutes.
On Blu-ray
MK: Annihilation on Blu-ray has a nice menu and just a couple of extra features, if you can call them that. These include a brief trailer for the new videogame that comes out on the 19th and the trailer for Annihilation in SD. Honestly, I’m not surprised any more effort was put into the making of this Blu-ray. Oh, there is a voucher code for the PSN to unlock a timed exclusive for the new game. The code gives you the Jade Classic Character Costume, just like the one seen in MK II.
As for presentation quality, it’s alright. The film itself has a lot of bad special effects of course but from a technical standpoint, image quality is fine. It certainly didn’t impress me but I’ve seen lower quality HD transfers as well. The DTS-HD 5.1 audio track is similar; it gets the job done but does not impress.
To the summary…
