Mortal Kombat Annihilation
| Mortal Kombat: Annihilation | |
|---|---|
| File:Mortal kombat annihilation.PNG | |
| Directed by | John R. Leonetti |
| Written by | Brent V. Friedman Bryce Zabel |
| Produced by | Lawrence Kasanoff |
| Starring | Robin Shou James Remar Talisa Soto Sandra Hess Brian Thompson Lynn 'Red' Williams |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release dates | November 21, 1997 |
Running time | 91 mins. |
| Language | English |
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is a 1997 movie that was the sequel to Mortal Kombat, and was based on the popular Mortal Kombat fighting game series.
Taglines:
- Destroy All Expectations!
- Nothing Will Ever Be The Same
- The world was created in six days, so too shall it be destroyed and on the seventh day mankind will rest... in peace
- Last time they were fighting for their lives. This time they're fighting for ours.
- This time there is no tournament. This time there are no rules. This time there is only Annihilation.
Plot Summary
Template:Spoiler The evil emperor Shao Kahn illegally opens a portal from Outworld to the Earthrealm and has reclaimed his Queen, Sindel. Liu Kang, Raiden, and their fellow Earth Realm warriors have only six days to defeat Shao Khan and his fellow fighters in order to close the portal. If they fail, then all of mankind will be destroyed on the seventh day.
The movie begins with Shao Kahn debuting and revealing his plan. He grabs Sonya Blade, prompting Johnny Cage to attack with a Shadow Kick. Kahn grabs Cage and breaks his neck, killing him instantly. The Outworld warriors depart.
Sonya Blade begins her portion of the journey by recruiting co-worker Jax Briggs. They fight off Cyrax and several ninjas before going to regroup with their allies. Meanwhile, Liu Kang and Kitana proceed to seek out the Indian Nightwolf in order to help him discover how to defeat Shao Kahn. It is during this time that they encounter Smoke, who attempts to destroy them, but they are rescued by Sub-Zero. Raiden takes this time to visit the Elder Gods for advice on how to handle the situation, but receives little.
Kitana is captured by Shao Kahn's forces, as Jade appears and helps Lui Kang. The group meets up in Outworld and are met by a now-human Rayden, who has sacrificed his godly essence to aid his friends in battle.
The final battle is a sequence of fights, in which Sonya Blade fends off Ermac, Jax faces off with Motaro, Kitana fights Sindel, and Lui Kang fights Shao Kahn. Ermac splits off into Noob Saibot, double teaming Sonya. Jax manages to defeat Motaro after disposing of his metal arms, then takes out Noob, allowing Sonya to defeat Ermac. Kitana puts down Sindel, and then all of them watch Lui Kang as he faces off with Shao Kahn. After both convert into their Animality modes, Lui Kang emerges victorious, and Earthrealm is spared.
Cast
Below is a list of actors/actresses that appeared in this film.
J.J. Perry -- Scorpion,Cyrax,Noob Saibot
Lance LeGault - Elder God of Fire
Carolyn Seymour - Elder God of Water
Critical reaction and performance
The movie was even less well-received than its predecessor and is considered in most ways inferior. While continuing in the visual spirit of the first movie, it had nowhere near the level of authenticity in both its special effects and fight choreography. Additionally, Annihilation suffers from an overtly large and homogeneous cast, employed to depict as many Mortal Kombat characters as possible (most of whom appeared for a minute or two, then disappeared never to be seen again with hardly any good reason whatsoever, with most of them never identified), with a subsequent drop in characterization. Adding to that, due to budget cuts, there was a lot of re-used footage in some scenes. For instance, Baraka's fall into a fiery pit was the same shot used for Rain's death, since the purple color of the latter's uniform is somewhat visible in the darkness. Fans of the series also complained of a large number of inconsistencies with the storyline of the games, such as the fact that Raiden and Shao Kahn were brothers and the Fallen Elder God Shinnok was their father (in the games, none of them are related).
There was also one notable violation of continuity at the beginning of the film: Johnny Cage (Chris Conrad) is seen in slow motion removing his sunglasses, despite the fact that they were crushed by Goro in the first movie.
Many props were custom-made for some of the characters in the film. One such prop was Kitana's metal fans, which were first seen as handle-less and wavy blades during Kitana's battle with one of Shao Kahn's extermination squads.
The cast was almost entirely revamped with only Robin Shou (Liu Kang) & Talisa Soto (Kitana) returning, both of them considered to be the film's only good assets. Also Keith Cooke (Reptile in the first movie) was cast as the new Sub-Zero, who is the younger brother of the original, while Soto's stunt-double from the first movie, Dana Hee, portrayed Mileena, Kitana's identical twin sister. Paul W. S. Anderson, the director of the first movie, refused to take part in this movie when the screenwriters did not make any true changes to the script. Almost all of the original cast refused to take part in it for similar reasons. All told, a combination of low funding, an unrealistically ambitious script, worn-out ideas, wooden acting from the new cast, notoriously laughable dialogue, B-movie special effects and repetitive fight sequences gave this picture a prominent position at IMDB's bottom 100 list.
The budget for MK:A was $40 million, but it wound up grossing only $35 million in the U.S. despite topping the box-office charts during its opening weekend. It also represented a drop of 50% of the total domestic gross ($70 million) from the original. Following the film's release, reproduction for a second sequel was to commence, but it was shelved due to Annihilation's poor box office performance. Nearly a decade later, the third film is currently in production.
Legacy
Apart from being generally regarded as a classic example of bad filmmaking, this movie caused the Mortal Kombat franchise to lose strength during the late 90s. Despite the success of Mortal Kombat 4 (in both arcades and home consoles), interest began declining due to inevitable series overexposure and a steady crop of ill-fated projects such as Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero (a side-scrolling prequel in which the original Sub-Zero is the lead character) and two short-lived TV shows: the animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1996) and Mortal Kombat: Conquest (1998). "Defenders" lasted only four months and eleven episodes. "Conquest", with its oversaturation of lengthy martial arts sequences and women in skimpy costumes in lieu of solid storytelling, was canceled after only one season despite garnering respectable ratings.
The franchise reached its nadir during the time of the mediocre Mortal Kombat Gold (an update of MK4), and the critically-panned Mortal Kombat Advance (for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance), which was regarded by critics and gamers alike as one of the worst titles released for the handheld console. The disastrous Mortal Kombat: Special Forces (2000) was the final straw for Midway, and the company finally decided to take some time off to get some really fresh ideas.
During that same year, John Tobias, the co-creator of the series and the main storyteller, resigned due to the recent downturn Mortal Kombat was going through, taking a large number of Midway's staff with him. This occurred while Mortal Kombat: Special Forces was still in production. (Special Forces was to feature both Jax and Sonya as playable characters, but the latter was cut from the finished game following Tobias' departure.) Ironically, when asked by gaming publication Electronic Gaming Monthly in a 1994 interview whether a Mortal Kombat game would be made without him or Boon, Tobias replied, "It would be over our dead bodies."
By the start of the new millennium, Mortal Kombat seemed to be a relic of the 1990s until the release of the direct-to-console Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002) re-ignited interest in the series.
Sequels
A third movie called Mortal Kombat: Devastation has been planned to be released sometime in 2006. However, instead of being a sequel to this movie, it will be skipping the events from this film and will serve as the true sequel to the first film.
Trivia
- In refusing to reprise her role as Sonya for Annihilation, Bridgette Wilson turned down a $750,000 payday.
- Quan Chi was to have also been included in the film's climax, but his scenes were cut from the final print and the actor who portrayed him was not acknowledged in the closing credits.
- John R. Leonetti was the cinematographer for the first MK film. His brother, Matthew, sat behind the camera for Annihilation.
- Two of the film's actors were regulars on American Gladiators: Lynn Williams (Jax) and Deron McBee (Motaro).
- Brent V. Friedman, who co-wrote the script for Annihilation, penned an unproduced script for Tomb Raider in 1998.
Story Plotholes
- Several other Mortal Kombat characters who were involved at this current timeline never made it to this movie. They were given some mention by their names. Kabal, and Kurtis Stryker. Of all characters involved with this era in the Mortal Kombat timeline, Sektor is never mentioned, or in this movie at all. Shinnok should not have been in this movie either. He came after the defeat of Shao Kahn.
- Kintaro has never been featured in a movie yet. He would have been somewhere either between the first movie, and this one, or he would have been in this movie.
- In the movie, Sub-Zero states that Shao Kahn had reprogrammed Smoke to come after Kitana, and Liu Kang instead of him. However, in the games, all three cyber ninjas are programmed by the Lin Kuei to go after the rogue Sub-Zero and none of them are capture and reprogrammed by Shao Kahn. He could not detect them since they no longer had souls to detect.
External links
- Mortal Kombat: Annihilation at the Internet Movie Database
- Mortal Kombat: Annihilation at Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension
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