Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (Film Review)

Director(s): John R. Leonetti

Release Date: November 21, 1997

The 1990s video game film adaptations had a habit of ending in a similar way.  The good guys save the day and everything is at peace, yet a looming threat threatens to disrupt such harmony on their next adventure.  Super Mario Bros, Double Dragon, and Street Fighter all end this way, setting up for a theatrical sequel that would never see the light of day.  Mortal Kombat follows the same trend, ending with its victorious protagonists preparing (aka posing) for a sudden new threat.

The only difference here is Mortal Kombat got its sequel.

Mortal Kombat made history as the first video game adaptation to get its theatrical sequel: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.  Looking at it statistically, Mortal Kombat getting a sequel makes sense.  At eighteen million, Mortal Kombat was the second cheapest video game adaptation made at its time (beaten only by Double Dragon)—and with a box office profit of over one hundred and twenty million (over six times its production costs, more than doubling Street Fighter’s cost-to-profit gains) the film was also the highest grossing.  Additionally, Mortal Kombat’s critical scores were the highest of any video game adaptation yet.  The reviews were still majority negative, but nevertheless, combined with its financial success, Mortal Kombat was a studio’s best bet then for a video game adaptation to have a successful sequel.

The sequel was not as successful as its predecessor, however, making less than double its production costs and being near-universally panned.  For me, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is, more or less, the same thing as Mortal Kombat.  Annihilation uses the same formula and style as its predecessor.  There are the flashy-looking characters with stock personalities, shoddy-looking CGI effects, PG-13 violence, and a nonsensical, poorly structured plot that was still the most faithful adaptation of a video game series at the time.  Annihilation does increase the amount of mindlessly entertaining action sequences in exchange for a downgrade in acting and comedy (comedy that’s intentional at least).

Annihilation begins exactly where Mortal Kombat leaves off, with the sequel giving a nice little recap of what happened previously (thank you Annihilation, for actually giving some narration in the opening).  Outworld emperor Shao Kahn (Brian Thompson) has broken Mortal Kombat law and invades Earth despite losing in the tournament.  The god of thunder Raiden (James Remar) is perplexed at how Kahn can break Mortal Kombat law and keep the portals between dimensions open, let alone why the all-powerful Elder Gods are allowing such cheating.  Nonetheless, Raiden challenges Kahn to a one-on-one, ultimately taking down the tyrant.

Kahn, however, takes a page from his deceased underling Shang Tsung and captures the damsel-in-distress herself, Sonya Blade (Sandra Hess), as a hostage.  Johnny Cage (Chris Conrad) jumps in to save Sonya but is killed in the process.  Kahn and his generals decide to leave for some reason (because the plot says so) and have their army of fodder soldiers attack Raiden and co. instead.  The good guys escape and decide to split up on various missions.  Liu Kang (Robin Shou) and Princess Kitana (Talisa Soto) leave in search of a man named Nightwolf (Litefoot), Sonya goes to find her partner Jax (Lynn “Red” Williams), and Raiden travels to the Elder Gods in search of answers.

Minor Spoilers Begin:

If you’ve been paying attention—and I wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t—only two of Mortal Kombat’s main cast return for the sequel: Robin Shou as Liu Kang and Talisa Soto as Kitana.  Raiden, Sonya, and Johnny Cage (who dies so early in it hardly matters) are all replaced by new actors.  The cast changes are incredibly apparent—particularly the absence of Christopher Lambert as Raiden, who gives such a unique personality to the thunder god that the two portrayals may as well be different characters.  That said, Remar’s portrayal as Raiden isn’t bad (though it is far more generic) and it is nice to see the character have a more active role in the action.

While Bridgette Wilson is far from making Sonya a great character, she gives a brutal sassiness to the character that, at the very least, makes her stand out.  Sandra Hess, on the other hand, feels like she’s only going through the actions of her stubborn character—feeling chosen for the part more for her looks (likely the reasoning) than her acting.  What’s worse is Sonya gets reset on her horrible character “development” from the previous film—once again having to learn about asking for help, aka learning to accept being a damsel in distress.  Only this time Sonya goes through such backward progress with her partner Jax—who only makes a voice cameo in Mortal Kombat.  Jax seems to have replaced Johnny Cage as the wisecracking warrior, though he’s not as funny as Ashby’s Cage (who isn’t very funny in the first place).

Annihilation takes it up a notch with action scenes—almost immediately starting off with a fight and continuously giving new ones every few minutes.  Mortal Kombat’s cinematographer John R. Leonetti returns as the sequel’s director, which may explain why the film overflows with fight choreography.  The entire film consists of the good guys fighting various opponents up until the climax where the forces of Earth and Outworld meet up to discuss their differences in a diplomatic manner.

Naw, just kidding.  They end up fighting in an over-the-top finale where Liu Kang and Shao Kahn transform themselves into two very crappy-looking CGI dragons…it’s still kind of cool though.  Like its predecessor, Annihilation is full of references and storytelling elements from the games.  Characters completely irrelevant to the plot make cameos for no other reason than cameos and/or to give a specific battle the fans may want.  The Mortal Kombat theme song is played, Scorpion says “Get over here!”, Shao Kahn says “You will never win.”, Sonya uses a variant of her fire kiss fatality, Sub-Zero uses his ice clone technique, there are animalities, Raiden actually fights, etc.  Most of these nods make no sense within the story and are purely there for fanservice.  Speaking of fanservice, Annihilation follows its video game counterparts with increasing the sexualization of its female characters.  Such instances include introducing the character Jade (Irina Pantaeva) in scantily clad clothing trying to seduce Liu and a mud fight between Sonya and Mileena (Dana Hee).

Annihilation is built solely for the fans, not a general audience.  The film is essentially one giant ring of fanservice built over a massive plot hole of inconsistencies and idiot ball moments.  Good guys wait like RPG characters for the antagonists to make their moves.  The villains have portals they can use to teleport anywhere yet decide to chase after the good guys using horses.  The final battle is fought one-v-one between the good and bad guys, despite the latter having a massive army that they previously used, with no qualms, to attack the heroes.

The villains are a complete downgrade from the previous film.  Shang Tsung may have been nothing special in Mortal Kombat but compared to Shao Kahn he’s the Raúl Juliá of video game villains.  It takes skill, posture, and proper utilization to pull off an over-the-top performance.   If Raúl Juliá’s M. Bison is the ideal example of such aspects succeeding, then Brian Thompson’s Shao Khan is the opposite—an over-the-top villain gone horribly wrong.  Thompson shouts and exaggerates, but there’s no passion behind such performance and his movements feel stiff—making his scenes cringy to watch.  What’s worse is the film emphasizes Khan relationship with his overbearing father Shinnok (Reiner Schöne), turning the main antagonist into a whiny, spoiled brat trying to please his daddy.  And don't get me started on Musetta Vander's performance as Kitana's evil mother Sindel. 

Minor Spoilers End

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation marked the end of its series’s theatrical releases—a series that was doomed to die due to its one-trick pony, style over substance approach.  The changes made to the sequel, whether positive or negative, merely amounts to color, with Annihilation giving largely the same experience as Mortal Kombat.  Both films pander to the fans, contain fast food action throughout, and are cinematic failures as actual stories.  The main difference between the two is the acceptance of their true nature.  While Mortal Kombat is fanservice disguised as an actual film, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation fully embraces its true purpose—tossing aside nearly any semblance of pretending to be an actual story and going all out as one big fan jerk.