Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
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 "Too bad... this movie... will DIE!"
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Mortal Kombat Annihilation is a 1997 martial arts-action film based on the Mortal Kombat franchise, and the sequel to Mortal Kombat.
Mortal Kombat Annihilation was theatrically released on November 21, 1997 by New Line Cinema. The film debuted at number one at the box office but dropped the next week due to overwhelming lackluster reviews, particularly for its story, characters and special effects. Annihilation was a box office bomb, grossing $51.3 million against a $30 million budget. A direct sequel was consequently canceled, and a third film languished in development hell for nearly two decades until the series was rebooted in 2021.
Plot
Every generation, a portal opens up between the Outerworld and Earth. Emperor Shao-Kahn (Brian Thompson), the ruler of the mythical Outerworld, pounces the moment the portal reopens and slips through with his mighty warriors, intent on total domination and uniting the two worlds. However, he has only seven days to complete his task. In the meantime, opposition grows and warriors Sonya Blade (Sandra Hess), Jax (Lynn "Red" Williams), Kitana (Talisa Soto), and Liu Kang (Robin Shou) get ready for war.
Production
Mortal Kombat Annihilation is loosely based on the 1995 video game Mortal Kombat 3, while featuring the character roster of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. There were also plot elements from Mortal Kombat 4, but these scenes were cut from the final theatrical version. While the original attracted casual moviegoers as well as gamers, Annihilation catered exclusively to the games' fans. Producer Lawrence Kasanoff said he was trying to make the film "even more spectacular than the first movie, which earned a healthy $73 million in the U.S. Annihilation is three times more ambitious than Mortal Kombat. Our theme for the sequel is to shoot for more—more fights, more special effects, more Outworld, more everything."
Filming began in the first quarter of 1996. Part of the movie was filmed on location at Parys Mountain on the island of Anglesey, off the coast of Wales (incorrectly listed as being part of England in the closing credits). Other filming locations included London, Jordan, and Thailand. Though Annihilation attempted to continue in the style of the first movie, the cast of returning characters from the original was almost completely overhauled; only Robin Shou (Liu Kang) and Talisa Soto (Kitana) reprised their roles, while the only other actor to return was Keith Cooke (Reptile in the first film) as Sub-Zero. Stephen Painter and Neill Gorton provided some of the props for the film. J. J. Perry replaced Chris Casamassa as Scorpion, as Casamassa chose to do Batman & Robin instead.
The French release of the movie was known as Mortal Kombat: Destruction Finale (Final Destruction), while the Italian release was titled Mortal Kombat: Distruzione Totale (Total Destruction). The film's novelization by Jerome Preisler was published through Tor Books.
Thai actor and martial artist Tony Jaa was a stunt double for Robin Shou in the film.
Why It Truly Destroyed All Expectations
- Aside from Robin Shou and Talisa Soto reprising their roles as Liu Kang and Kitana, some of the original actors didn't come back for this movie and were replaced possibly due to production issues and unavailability.
- Christopher Lambert (the actor who played Raiden in the first film) initially turned down because of scheduling conflicts, but in actuality, he did not like the script that was given by the writer at all. This is the true reason why he left the production.
- Cheap production values. The most egregious is the entire opening credits sequence, which is lazily copied straight from it's predecessor.
- There are many parts of the film that don't follow the original games, like when Shao Kahn takes off his mask multiple times which he'll never does in the games, and he has a human face for some reason.
- Most of the acting and performances are weak, especially from Brian Thompson as Shao Kahn and James Remar as Raiden, who doesn't give an performance as great as Christopher Lambert from the first film.
- Unlike the previous movie that had a small amount of Mortal Kombat characters, this movie has in total of 23 Mortal Kombat characters, most of them don't get a backstory or any characterizations other than the "if you know how they look like or know their names, then you know who they are" excuse. Most of the villains except the "important villains" only serve to be defeated by the heroes or only to get killed off/defeated easily and the heroes almost get no consequences other than momentarily getting beaten up and having to learn something new or their mistakes.
- Many moments are heavy-handed and unnecessary, such as Nightwolf's scene.
- Many questions remain unanswered, such as why the Elder Gods lied to Raiden and how Scorpion (despite being an undead hellspawn as evident by his head is just a skull underneath his mask) is alive despite being killed in the first film.
- Some lazy editing, such as Rain's death scene being recycled for Liu Kang defeating Baraka.
- Way too many jump scenes.
- Bleak and bland backgrounds, and very poor CGI effects even for 1997. The disappointing buildup towards Liu Kang and Shao Kahn's Animality forms, which show off the worst looking effects of them all, doesn't help. The green-screen effects look even worse.
- Laughably bad dialogue, such as Sindel's infamous line "Too bad... you... will die!" which became a meme amongst the Mortal Kombat community, and Scorpion yelling "Suckers!" at Liu Kang and Sub-Zero.
- Many of the costumes look cheap and ugly (mainly Liu Kang and Raiden) such as Jax having arm implants that are clearly made out of rubber and not metal.
- Irina Pantaeva is white-washed and miscast as Jade.
- Some characters don't get much screen time as they should.
- Kabal and Stryker were mentioned in the film by Rain, but they didn't make their appearances in this film.
- Johnny Cage, one of the most iconic characters in the entire Mortal Kombat franchise and the person who defeated Goro in the first film, dies in the first five minutes of the movie, despite the fact this film was made around the time Mortal Kombat Trilogy (a game where he is playable) was still relevant. This was ironic considering that Daniel Pesina, who previously played Johnny Cage in the first two games has left Midway in 1994 and was replaced by David Alexander in Mortal Kombat Trilogy.
- Like for example, Scorpion and Sub-Zero, two of the most iconic characters of the franchise are underutilized and have one brief fight scene and both aren't shown again, and Sheeva, a major Mortal Kombat 3 character, unfortunately, dies without fighting anyone (much to the disappointment of her portrayer), which makes her involvement in the story completely pointless
- Even though the villains are portrayed excellently, their development is terrible.
- Jade's betrayal was a nice twist but her dying by Shao Kahn was a terrible idea.
- Shao Kahn kills Rain and the latter for stupid reasons without bothering to explain this motive other than coming up with foolish reasons like beg for their lives or leading the heroes into an ambush, even though Jade and Sindel were fairly outnumbered.
- Many plot holes and errors:
- Raiden quickly changes from an Elder God into a martial artist from the Earth Realm for no reason at all.
- During the fight with Mileena and Sonya, the mud on their bodies often appears and disappears in many shots.
- There is an outright lack of fatalities except Sonya's kiss of death and blood.
- The film acknowledges the fact that humanity is facing destruction, but it doesn't show people actually dying or screaming for their lives making the apocalyptic destruction seem unrealistic.
- Originally, this movie was going to have a sequel, but it never happened due to the poor reception and the disappointing box-office performance, leading to this film ending the original live-action Mortal Kombat series on a sour note.
Redeeming Qualities
- Some of the villains like Sheeva and Motaro look cool.
- Some fight scenes are done pretty well.
- The fight between Sonya and Mileena was great.
- Liu Kang's fight with Smoke by default is also the best fight scene.
- The scene were the franchise mascots, Scorpion and Sub-Zero get to fight each other is pretty awesome.
- Ed Boon, who voiced Scorpion in the game, was also reprised Scorpion in this movie.
- Some of the costumes, like Sindel's costume, are pretty good.
- The music is top-notch as always, including a great score by George S. Clinton and many included songs such as "Genius" by Pitchshifter and "Almost Honest" by Megadeth.
- The theme song by the The Immortals from the original film also returns.
- Despite Sandra Hess replacing Bridgette Wilson as Sonya, she does a good job in portraying her character more and the chemistry with Jax is great as well making it possibly the best character development than anyone.
- Great sound editing that was done by THX.
- At least in some ways, the movie's so bad it's funny.
Reception
Box office
Mortal Kombat Annihilation was released on November 21, 1997, and its opening weekend take was $16 million, enough for a number-one debut at the box office. It grossed $35 million domestically and made $51.3 million worldwide.
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, 4% of 53 reviews were positive, with an average rating of 2.6/10. The website's critics consensus states, "With its shallow characters, low budget special effects, and mindless fight scenes, Mortal Kombat - Annihilation offers minimal plot development and manages to underachieve the low bar set by its predecessor." On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 11 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating an "overwhelming dislike." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.
Jason Gibner of Allmovie wrote, "Whereas the first film was a guilty schlock pleasure, this sequel is an exercise in the art of genuinely beautiful trash cinema." Marjorie Baumgarten of the Austin Chronicle opined that it was "nothing more than a perpetual chain of elaborately choreographed fight sequences that ... are linked together by the most flimsy and laughable of plot elements." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "D−" rating, calling it "abysmal" and "incoherent." R.L. Shaffer of IGN wrote in 2011: "Mortal Kombat Annihilation is a bad movie. No way around it. Over the years, however, it has evolved into a cult hit of sorts, playing as an unintentional comedy – a spoof of the early video game movies and their painfully obvious cash-in mentality."
In separate 2012 interviews, Mortal Kombat co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias selected Annihilation as their personal worst moments in the history of their work on the franchise.
In an interview for Luke Owen’s book, Lights, Camera, Game Over, producer Lawrence Kasanoff revealed the film was released unfinished: "I'm telling you the effects in that movie are not the final effects. I never anticipated that someone would take the movie and go, 'it's good enough'. We weren't done. We never finished that movie. But the studio said, 'we don’t care'. We sacrificed quality for business."
Other Media
Novelization
A novelization of the film was written by Jerome Preisler.
Canceled sequel
Shou's original contract was a three-picture deal, and Threshold Entertainment's production on a second sequel was initially scheduled to commence shortly after the release of Annihilation, but was shelved due to Annihilation's poor reception and disappointing box office performance. Attempts to produce a third film remained stuck in development hell, with numerous script rewrites, and storyline, cast and crew changes. A November 2001 poll on the official Mortal Kombat website hosted by Threshold asked fans which characters they believed would die in a third film.
The 2005 destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina greatly affected one of the planned shooting locations. In June 2009, a bankruptcy court lawsuit saw producer Kasanoff suing Midway Games while mentioning that a third film was in the works. Warner Bros. (which became the parent company of New Line Cinema in 2008, after over a decade of both operating as separate divisions of Time Warner) ended up purchasing most of Midway's assets, including Mortal Kombat. Warner Bros. released the rebooted film Mortal Kombat in 2021.
Videos
External Links
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation at the Internet Movie Database
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation on Rotten Tomatoes
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation on Metacritic
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation on Letterboxd
Comments
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