One thing all 90's kids can agree on is that 1995 brought us one of the most kick-butt movies of the decade with the release of the movie adaptation of "Mortal Kombat"- based of course on the popular arcade games of the same name.It was a huge hit, coming out at the perfect time to thrill audiences in a market that hadn't yet suffered martial arts and CGI overload. It boasted a fun storyline with mayhem and magic, had that amazing techno-song, was populated with likable actors and was filled to burst with tons of awesome moments. Who doesn't remember the hilarious intro to Johnny Cage, or the amazing puppetry on Goro, or the sweet Liu Kang VS Sub-Zero match?With the game series ever-growing and expanding the mythology and the first film being such a pleasant surprise, we just knew that the inevitable sequel was gonna be bigger and better! There's no way it couldn't!...right?Then reality slapped us in the face with 1997's "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation." A film that has gone on to join the ranks of "Batman & Robin" and "Speed 2" as one of the most infamous sequels of not only the 90's, but arguably of all time. A failure that squanders all potential and destroys virtually all left-over good-will from the first movie and instead replaces it with laughable writing, strangely over-the-top performances, bizarrely dated effects even at the time and mind- blowingly bad visual direction.Picking up immediately after the original ends, the evil emperor Shao Kahn opens a portal from Outworld and begins a process that will merge it with the Earth in six-days time, giving him total power. Now, our Earth-heroes Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, Jax and Raiden must find a way to stop this devious scheme or else the Earth will be lost forever.That may sound like a solid enough foundation to build a movie off of, but trust me... it doesn't work. The film is beyond fractured and frankly every single scene just lumps on more plot-holes, unanswered questions and contrived pseudo-explanations in order to justify the proceedings... mainly so it can tenuously connect the constant onslaught of bad fight scenes that make up a majority of the screen time.Director John R. Leonetti seems in over his head with this film- his directorial debut, taking over for original director Paul WS Anderson. Leonetti and his army of screenwriters are never able to find any real sort-of balance with tone, pace or style. Scenes come and go are strange intervals, humor and drama never quite gel together, and sub-plots and characters are constantly jarringly introduced and dropped without consequence or reason. The visuals are also a marked step- down from the original, with many shots being poorly thought- out and unable to be cut together competently.There's also the issue of padding and choreography in many of the fights that lends to it all feeling very dull and forced. While the first film's action does have a slight air of feeling "fake" in retrospect, it can be forgiven as it was one of the first truly hit martial-arts-based films in the US. But this one just ramps up that problem, with so many unneeded flips and tricks that are thrown in to be "cool" and "the bomb", that it just feels tacky and false. By the time you see the thirtieth random backflip, you'll feel like doing some flipping yourself... flipping the channel to something else.The performances are among some of the hammiest I've seen in a major blockbuster. The only person who really emerges unscathed is the criminally underrated Robin Shou returning to his role of Liu Kang. He's great. Everyone else? A caricature. Lynn "Red" Williams as Jax is a giant goofball who throws around unfunny one-liners like its nobody's business. Reiner Schöne chews the scenery as Kahn's evil father. Brian Thompson constantly SHOUTS his lines at RANDOM in an attempt to sound THREATENING as our lead villain. But of course Musetta Vander steals the show with her legendarily bad take on Princess Kitana's mother Sindel, spouting some of the worst dialog ever written with the glee of a 12-year-old on a sugar-high. It's outlandish watching her twirl and cackle and wave her arms about in her scenes... What did she think she was even doing? Was she trying to channel Ace Ventura for her role?Add to that... -Lowered production values (Gag-worthy green-screens and clearly rubber "metal" on the costumes and sets galore!) -Shoddy costume design that looks like the actors are dressed in the Wal-Mart Halloween costumes based on the movie rather than in real movie costumes-Wildly dated effects that looked bad even in 1997 (We're talking "Tron" quality CGI at times... except this was made 15 years later)...and more and you have a recipe for disaster.That being said, I do have to make a somewhat startling admission......I kinda like this movie. Oh, it's bad. It's really bad. But it's so bad, that it springs right back up as one of those unintentional "so bad, it's kinda good" camp classics. There's no way to hear lines of dialog like those you hear in this film ("You're alive!" "...too bad YOU WILL DIE!") without howling with laughter. There's no way to see the incompetent fight sequences where people are flipping through the air like helium-filled balloons without chuckling and shaking your head. There's no way to see the awful, 80's quality digital creatures flying about without a big-old smirk coming across your face.So, if you like so-bad-they're-good flicks... This is one for the ages!I give "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" a 3 out of 10. It's an awful sequel that effectively killed a franchise. But with some friends and maybe some booze, you'll still have a grand time tearing it apart and laughing at its sheer ineptitude.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation could have easily made the franchise into a successful trilogy of movies, but as the tagline implies, this movie destroyed all expectations.Everything that worked in the first movie is absent here. The majority of returning characters are portrayed by new actors (with the exceptions of Robin Shou as Liu Kang, and Talisa Soto as Kitana). It also doesn't help that the acting this time around is terrible as everyone's performances range from stale (James Remar as Rayden) to over the top (Brian Thompson as Shao Kahn).The script is riddled with plot holes, and comes off as nonsensical. The movie also follows a simple pattern; fighting, running, talking, and it goes on throughout the entire run time of the movie.There is a lack of character development as the movie attempts to cram in as many characters from the more popular games in the Mortal Kombat franchise (mainly Mortal Kombat II and MK3), and the majority of them have limited screen-time as they either get killed off, or disappear after their 1 scene.Of course, we have to take a look at the action, but the fight scenes are pretty lackluster this time around. We had some impressive stuff choreography-wise in the first movie, but all of the fight scenes here feel rushed.There's an overabundance of special effects in the movie, and yet, every single one of them look terrible, even for 1997. Supposedly, this movie had a bigger budget than the first movie, and yet, it looks nowhere near as impressive. Production and cinematography- wise, the whole movie looks and feels like a cheap straight-to-video sequel rushed out to capitalize on the success of the first movie.Mortal Kombat: Annihilation suffers the same problems as the majority of the other movies based on video games, it didn't feel like they tried to make a proper movie based on the game, but instead a product that tries shoehorning references to said game in a way that feels gimmicky, but as far as the genre goes, this stands as the worst film of the genre for being a colossal disappointment following its entertaining and well made predecessor, and a prime example of shoddy filmmaking (so much that it almost rivals anything directed by Uwe Boll). Do yourself a favor, stick to the first movie and the video games, avoid this stinker.

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.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is consider by many as one of the worse video game movies ever created and with good reason.The film from the get go shows that it had no desire to make a huge impact the only impact this film has that is even close to being consider memorable is that this film just shows how a sequel can pretty much ruin a whole series.It features some of the worse visual and special effects that can easy to be set up as a video game. I mean video games had better visuals then this film has all together.As a fan of the first Mortal Kombat movie I will say yes that film wasn't perfect but it had at least try to make itself a hit and it was. I consider the first Mortal Kombat to have been done right. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation does not. The acting in the film is simply awful the cast seem that they were trying to make a bad video game and also the writing in the film is just plain bad. Also the story is really weak. Perhaps the best thing about the film is that if you don't watch it you'll be better off because this film really don't do anything to award the viewerI give Mortal Kombat: Annihilation an 2 out of 10