They got the buff part right, so kudos to you Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, but his bone-filled medieval outfit looks two sizes too big. The only thing the filmmakers almost got right is getting a buff dude to play him, and they even screwed that part up.įirst off, his appearance is an abject failure. In Annihilation, though, Shao Kahn (played by Brian Thompson) is as incredibly lame as everything else in the film. When the cast of every entry is a paint palette of ninjas and a handful of Z-tier supervillains, the Biggest Bad being a typical warlord with a normal-sized warhammer makes for an oddly effective contrast. In the games, Shao Kahn is a uniquely scary villain with an otherwise straightforward concept (at least going off his showing in MK9 ). This is mostly to do with how very terrible Annihilation ’s version of Shao Kahn is (see: Exhibit A).
Mortal kombat annihilation kitana movie#
On the flipside, where the original Mortal Kombat movie made a few smart, lasting changes that eventually made their way into the mainline games, every tweak Annihilation makes to the series canon is absolutely for the worse. NetherRealm Games pulls this off with aplomb but as a movie, Annihilation just falls apart. Mortal Kombat 9, Mortal Kombat X and the upcoming Mortal Kombat 11 ‘s narratives unfold in between pre-determined fights against AI-controlled opponents, where characters walk from one fight scene to the next – which usually means just loading up different fighting game arenas. This is even more true when it’s compared to the recent NetherRealm entries.
It’s like an arcade ladder turned into a script. It can barely wait two minutes before unleashing a new wave of pathetic kicks, blocks and flips on the poor, helpless audience. There’s a handful of mundane conversations, more backflips than spoken words and characters jogging to their next scheduled fight. Surprisingly, compared to the original movie, Annihilation manages to be far more faithful to the games themselves, and it isn’t just in the aforementioned “cram every character we can into the movie” sort of way, but in its story and plotting as well. It’s just a deluge of mind-numbing motion and vague mental anguish. Much like swallowing a handful of horse tranquilizers, Annihilation isn’t nearly as fun as it should be. The reaction shot gets a lot of love in Annihilation, too, because nothing’s more exciting than cutting to a dead-faced spectator, offering nothing but a dim stare. You’re bored by the third and it’s only been ten minutes. One ends and another starts up right away. They’re slow, poorly shot and poorly edited scenes with Power Rangers -esque choreography, and they just never stop. Eventually it ends and the credits start rolling.Īt least there’s more fighting this time – and Christ do I wish this was a good thing.Įvery fight in Annihilation plays out the exact same way. It doesn’t even have the luxury of the original movie’s tournament setup it simply continues like the next episode in a television show by adding a mostly-unseen apocalypse and some new ninja colours to the mix. Meanwhile, Shao Kahn desperately tries to impress his Dad Shinnok. Suddenly, Shao Kahn arrives! Ninjas cartwheel into frame! Shao Kahn kills Johnny Cage! The heroes escape! From there, the remaining good guys walk around a number of sets looking for help, or strength, or something. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation starts right as the first movie ends, as Liu Kang, Kitana, Sonya, Johnny Cage and Raiden (the latter three having been recast, just to add to the greatness) arrive at Liu Kang’s temple. If you watched the movie either in 1997 or more recently – for whatever reason – hoping to see Shao Kahn, Motaro, Sheeva, Cyrax, Nightwolf on the big screen, you won’t be disappointed: Annihilation meets those expectations… and absolutely nothing else. It’s a cynical 90-minute commercial built for younger fans and whoever else didn’t know any better, “dazzling” these tragic youths with all the low-effort cosplay they could afford. If Mortal Kombat was a faithful film adaptation that was accurate to the games without overdoing it, its 1997 sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is full-on fan service.Įven as someone who’s only familiar with the series through the reboot entries and dumb jokes made about the old ones, Annihilation is relentless in pulling whatever it can from the games themselves. Have you got a suggestion for next time? Or maybe we missed something? Let us know on the socials or in the comments below! Welcome to Doublejump’s new regular series, Press X To Adapt! Every two weeks, we’ll dive into a game-turned-movie or movie-turned-game to take a look at how it turned out, the differences between the two, and anything else worth chatting about!
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