The Quest Begins - Mortal Kombat Annihilation Review

This is the movie that started it all. The first movie I ever watched that made me aware that cinema can be an instrument of frustration, confusion and utter stupidity. Everyone has a movie like this one, a movie that irritates you on a personal level. Being a hardened Mortal Kombat fan I had high hopes for both the original movie and its sequel. While the original wasn’t quite what we had in mind for an MK movie (the movie doesn’t even have a single fatality in it) it was at least a structured movie with decent enough characters. Its sequel however, Annihilation, is nothing short of an abomination. This movie is the equivalent of having a monkey through its own filth at you, because you feel both dirty and angry after watching it. Before I begin I would like to issue a warning, as I said above I am a Mortal Kombat fan (which is proving harder and harder to be with the latest string of games released.... a subject for another time) so there will be periods throughout this review in which I will turn into a bit of a fanboy. I will give you pre-warning to when these nerdgasms are going to take place but in my defence I believe I have reason enough to release my inner fanboy. The main reason for this is because, unlike other video game to movie adaptations which don’t give two shits about the game they are based on, this movie actually takes its story straight from one of the games, namely Mortal Kombat 3. The minute the minds behind this movie decided to take this approach they were expected to follow the lore of Mortal Kombat to the letter as not to piss off the target audience for this movie.... as you can already surmise this movie fails, badly.



Before I begin I should give you a summary of the first movie so you can be brought up to speed, Liu Kang and friends were invited to a tournament, Liu Kang and friends killed everyone (PG rated of course), everyone was happy. There, you’re caught up! This movie begins with Shao Khan breaking up the love fest at the end of the first movie and bringing a whole new cast of minions for Liu Kang to kill. Shao Khan, who looks and sounds completely different to what he did in the first movie, explains that the Earth will be destroyed in seven days and basically farts on about how evil he is. Raiden flip jumps at Khan, because you can’t leap into the air in this movie without it looking completely stupid. They then begin to fight while Shao Khan’s army and Raiden’s allies SIMPLY WATCH!! Last time I checked if I’m at a pub and one of my mates is in a fight, you jump into help; you don’t sit back and hope your guy wins, pussies!! FANBOY ALERT! FANBOY ALERT! During the course of the fight we get to see the cheap special moves of both Raiden and Shao Khan where Raiden does his flying charge (along with stupid inaudible “AUMINADAH” sound effect) and Shao Khan does with green shoulder charge and his........ Hado-Ken?!?!? I’m serious; Shao Khan throws a Hado-Ken at Raiden. I think the movie suddenly had an identity crisis and thought it was a Street Fighter movie. For the record Shao Khan’s projectile comes from his eyes, not his hands. During the melee Johnny Cage finally grows some balls and decides to attack Shao Khan. This turns out to be a mistake as Khan kills Cage while again EVERYONE WATCHES!! Holy shit!! Apparently everyone in this movie believes in a fair fight, even when lives are at risk!

I guess if Shao Khan can do one then anyone can!!

Our heroes escape to an underground tunnel and wonder exactly what is going on. Raiden explains that Sindel (one of the minions Khan brought with him that the movie didn’t bother to introduce us to until now) is the reason Khan could come to Earth and start fucking shit up. FANBOY ALERT! FANBOY ALERT! This is all the explanation we get from the movie. Raiden simply says “Sindel is the key, and if we reunite Kitana with her then everything should go back to normal”. That’s it! No one wonders why that even works. In the game at least we are told that Sindel’s body is on Earth while Shao Khan is in Outworld, when Sindel is revived Shao Khan is allowed to enter Earth to reclaim his bride and hence the portals are open. The movie obviously thought this was really lame and thought cheap special effects and lame acting were money better spent, a little bit of exposition would not go astray right now!!


After this the gang decides to split up, Kang and Kitana will go find Nightwolf to help defeat Khan while Sonya will go find Jax to help.... well just help. But I hear you asking yourself, how are they going to get around knowing that Khan’s goons are all over the world? Perhaps Raiden will use his powers of teleportation to teleport people there, or there are some mystical portals under the earth that only Elder Gods can use to assist. Unfortunately this movie is far too stupid to come up with modes of transport like that, instead we get the Velospheres. Velospheres are giant cage balls that two people get in and a whisked around the world through a serious of underground tubes to different destinations around the world. THIS IS COMPLETE BULLSHIT!! Not only are these never in any Mortal Kombat games but just the design alone is stupid! Forget the whole physics for a second (which alone would make Stephen Hawkings head explode) but in one scene Kang and Kitana arrive at the “interchange” which is basically a chamber in which you are launched over a sea of lava and have to direct yourself to a hole in the wall to continue, and if you fuck this up YOU DIE!! Who would design that, it’s like designing a motorway and planting landmines just so motorists are paying attention. ARGH! Random stupidity!


After their brush with death in the Velospheres Kang and Kitana arrive at a bridge over a lava river and finally feel like revealing their true feelings for each other, all the pent up sexual tension will finally be released, but then arrives Smoke – The Cockblocker, I can relate I was always hate it when cyborg ninjas break up one of my make-out sessions, ruins the mood. FANBOY ALERT! FANBOY ALERT! During the fight Smoke fires a missile at Kang, now while a robot from MK 3 did fire a missile as an attack, it was Sector not Smoke. In fairness their names are kind of similar so I can forgiv... no I can’t GET IT RIGHT!! Smoke is defeated by being frozen by Sub Zero with a live missile in its chest. For those of you expecting a fanboy alert at this moment it will not be coming because this actually makes sense, when Liu Kang killed the original Sub Zero his brother took over the name to lead the clan, this is actually a storyline from the original game, I know I was shocked too! Sub Zero is then attacked by Scorpion, and again this makes sense since Scorpion is a wraith so he technically cannot be killed, only vanquished, but enough nerdishness because Scorpion and Sub Zero are fighting, this should be awesome........ should be. It’s not much of a fight, basically looks like to cos-players fake fighting each other outside an EB waiting for the next MK game to be released. Also, I hate to harp on the same issue but after Kang and Kitana claim to need Sub Zero’s help they just sit back and watch as Sub Zero fends off Scorpion. Liu stop being such a pussy and fight!!! Anyway the fight ends with Kang saving Sub Zero from a horrible blue screen effect as Scorpion kidnaps Kitana while yelling “Suckers!” Is that a joke, “suckers!!”, c’mon this is Scorpion one of the true badasses of Mortal Kombat and you’ve reduced him to the menace of a fifth grader, fuck I hate this movie. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing Scorpion and Sub Zero because that’s the last time you see them! Serious, two of the most popular characters of the Mortal Kombat series and this jackhole only felt like giving them cameos, can you believe it gets worse from here!

Seriously the movie made this look lame! That's skill!!

Meanwhile, Sonya has arrived at a remote research facility where she apparently knows Jax is being held. She breaks in to find Jax on an operating table in metal restraints with the trademark metal arms, hey alright this movie got something right about a character. FANBOY ALERT! FANBOY ALERT! Son of a bitch! Apparently in this movie the metal arms of Jax are simply cybernetic enhancements to his original arms. BULLSHIT! The only reason Jax has those in the game is because he had his original arms ripped off, did they even play this game or just stare at the cover art of MK3 for six hours! I also have to ask why has Jax been restrained? Do the arms have some homicide mode and the people installing them might have accidentally activated it? Anyway, Jax frees himself (proving that those restraints were useless in the first place) and they are attacked by Cyrax, a cyborg ninja made from the strongest and most durable material mined in all of Outworld..... Plastic!! Honestly the costume is terrible, Smoke’s was bad but at least he was a dark colour so you couldn’t tell but Cyrax is bright yellow and it looks rubbish. Anyway, Jax beats up Cyrax while Sonya fights some Power Ranger villain rejects. Cyrax actually has the net attack, it’s wrong but oh well at least it’s there, and then Sonya throws Cyrax into a wall, picks up some sand and then blows it on Cyrax and holy shit SONYA JUST DID A FATALITY!! I can’t believe it, I have been waiting over three hours of combined footage in the two Mortal Kombat movies and finally I have seen a fatality! Yes, this movie is still a complete car wreck but thank god, finally the point of MK has been realised and a fatality has been performed, sorry I’ll need to take a minute.

I really do wonder how Uwe Boll did not direct this movie!

Alright, I’m over it now, but hey this movie might be improving. Maybe all the shit we’ve had to put up with until now was required to give us a kick ass second half, I’m praying so. Anyway, Liu Kang is now wandering around a desert, for some reason, when all of a sudden he is attacked by the camera, not quite as harshly as the camera attack in Quarantine but pretty full-on. Actually this is supposed to symbolise Nightwolf attacking Kang in his animality. Really? Your taking the animality route? You do know that animalities were a tack on at the end of MK3’s development because there was a rumour that it might happen. There not crucial to the overall MK story. Ok, I’ll roll with it for now, after all how can you fuck up something as simple as an animality. But before all that I need to say something about Nightwolf, played worryingly enough by a guy named Litefoot (who would use an alias anyway), Nightwolf is suppose to be a Native American mystic who’s deeply entrenched in the ways of his people. The movies version however is more like a juvenile felon who’s just held up a 7-11, throwing out “disses” that wouldn’t be out of place on an episode of Yo Mama. How do you misread a character like that, oh well he’s only in the movie for one scene so I shouldn’t complain. Nightwolf tells Kang that he needs to find his animality to defeat Khan and that there is a short way and a long way. Kang says he doesn’t have time for the long way so Nightwolf cranks him in the head with a tomahawk. WHAT! I know I had to rewind to make sure I hadn’t just seen things, yeah Nightwolf hurls a tomahawk at Kang and it just dazes him. Don’t know why Custer had such a problem if a tomahawk only knocks you over!! I’m starting to wonder if you can lose IQ by watching movies like this.


Moving on, after pulling of the Hulk Liu Kang wakes up to find it snowing, for some reason, and a scantily clad Asian woman ready to comfort him, alright this movie has finally decided to add it’s on contribution to the series with an original character, this should be good. The Asian women tries to seduce Kang but he refuses, saying he’s in love with Kitana, gay! The woman doesn’t take it well and transforms into her fighting costume and tells him that she is FANBOY ALERT! FANBOY ALERT! JADE! Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, Jade are you serious!! An Asian is Jade? While I have nothing against this actress per say, although she does chew the scenery in every scene she is in, Jade is African, not Asian. This is the same as doing a Lord Of The Rings movies with Gimli as an elf! How on Earth do you fuck something like that up, seriously there were no black actresses who you could have put in this role!! I can’t get over this, everyone else is cast true to the game, but for this role they thought about changing it. Right I have to end talking about this now before I find my animality!! Turquoise (because she is not Jade) fights Kang but then tells him this was one of Nightwolf’s tests to reach Kang’s animality but that they need to go and rescue Kitana.

MK Jade

Annihilation Turquiose

We head back to Sonya and Jax who are heading off to rendezvous with Raiden, Jax is bitching about something, probably about being in this movie and Sonya gets moody and says no one could save Johnny, that’s because NO ONE TRIED TO SAVE HIM! Sonya walks into a mud pit and immediately gets attacked by a woman in red armed with Sais. Sonya mistakes her for Kitana and then they fight. I will take the liberty to tell you this is Mileena, because the movie doesn’t want to, and she is a clone of Kitana. Well if you have a fucking clone of someone the group is after why would you not have her infiltrate the group instead of just trying to kill them!! She’s there simply so the director can say that all MK characters are in this movie, if you’re going to use them at least use them properly!! Anyway, Sonya defeats Mileena and then gets attacked by a pile of CG vomit. Seriously I have no idea what the fuck this thing is suppose to be but apparently it has weak calf muscles because Jax punches it over and over again in the leg and sends it falling into a hole in the ground. YOU CAN’T JUST ADD SHIT WHENEVER YOU FEEL LIKE IT. THERE NEEDS TO BE PURPOSE ARGGHHHH!!! Sorry I need another minute.

Seriously someone tell me what the fuck this thing is?!?

Alright, after that they all meet up at the temple of the elder gods where Raiden has found out nothing new from the elder gods and for the experience traded his immortality, what a rip off. However it would seem that when he traded his immortality Raiden also developed a case of multiple personality disorder because we constantly switches from god to homeboy. This is typified when he asks Jax “what’s the deal with your arms”. This is the god of thunder and lightning and he is asking “what’s the deal with your arms” for god sake man have some dignity. They escape through a portal to Outworld after being cornered by Shao Khan. Khan says that they have fallen right into this trap and that everything is under control, glad something is!


When landing in Outworld Liu Kang goes off to rescue Kitana from Shao Khan while the others go off to find Sindel. The lengthy search of Sindel ends in approximately two minutes as Sindel screams at the party and summons ninjas to attack. FANBOY ALERT! FANBOY ALERT! The ninjas in question are actually Zaterreans (basically the race that Reptile was) which is crap because they are actually an extinct race with only two survivors. Reptile (who according the first movie is dead) and Chameleon and therefore there cannot be three more. It’s basically directorial dick-waiving, saying “I have more Reptiles then you”. Grow up you idiot! Anyway, after Raiden is done dodging them, as he doesn’t really fight them, we find that Turquoise beat Sindel off screen, gee isn’t that convenient, that’s not suspect at all. I would never expect someone to be a spy, sigh!


Liu Kang is doing his best tomb raider impression as he basically walks straight into Shao Khan’s fortress without any resistance, again how convenient, and into the room where Kitana is being held. Before he can release her though he is attacked by...... Baraka?!? Seriously, I said the Cyrax costume was bad but this is just laughable, Baraka basically looks like a rabid muppet. It’s not easy being RRRAAAARRGGHH! It’s a piss poor fight, and a small part of me dies every time I see this as Baraka is one of my favourite characters so when Liu Kang actually finishes him I’m relieved that the indignity has stopped. Kang releases Kitana but just as they are about to embrace in comes Sheeva – The Cockblocker. This should be an epic fight, with the hype around the Goro fight a mono-a-womano fight with a female Goro should be, she’s dead. Yep, while I was writing that Kang threw a sword at a chain and dropped the cage Kitana was being held onto Sheeva. Are you fucking serious!! You put so much work into this effect and then you kill her off that quickly! It’s as if they finished the script and thought “Ace, it’s done we’re on a winner here, Oh shit Sheeva is still alive. We can’t have a villain left alive, oh screwed it just have her get crushed Wile E Coyote style”. That is just dreadful script writing, if you haven’t got room for a character then don’t include them, it’s that simple!!

Poor poor Baraka, look what they did to him!

Liu Kang and Kitana rejoin the others and they attempt to reunite Kitana and Sindel to close Khan’s portals, but surprise surprise it doesn’t work and we find out Turquoise has led them into a trap. Sindel teleports away while Turquoise sneaks out leaving the party to be caught in Khan’s trap of nothing. For real, nothing happens, oh Shao Khan does you evil know no bounds. That was really worth the hour it took to build up wasn’t it! Anyway, through a very long winded explanation we find out that Raiden and Shao Khan are brothers, I’m not even going to dignify that with a fanboy statement, and that Raiden’s dad is the one pulling the strings to keep the portals open. So in case you missed it the entire first hour of this movie was a complete waste of time. Alright I’m just going to jump to the final fight because if the movie doesn’t care about itself, why should I?


Liu Kang, Sonya, Kitana and Jax head to the site of the final fight to take on Khan, Sindel, Motaro (the centaur) and Ermac (the orange ninja, the movie never tells you his name by the way). Raiden tries to reason with Khan but immediately gets owned and dies by another Hado-Ken, that’s right this movie actually has a street fighter fatality!! It’s all spiralling out of control now! After Sonya, Jax and Kitana win their individual fights we turn our attention to Kang Vs. Khan. Again it’s like every other fight until Liu Kang discovers his animality and turns into FANBOY ALERT! FANBOY ALERT! Are you surprised anymore. Yes Liu Kang turns into a Dragon but it’s not the MK dragon, instead it’s some mix between Puff the Magic Dragon and the dragon from Eragon. The MK dragon is all over the game! How do you miss that! Even more embarrassing Shao Khan turns into a Hydra. SHOA KHAN DOES NOT HAVE AN ANIMALITY!! And despite Nightwolf and Raiden saying that this was the key to beating Khan all that happens is an incredibly poor CG fight that results in Khan and Kang falling to a lower level and continuing to fight, with Khan still kicking Liu Kang’s ass. Then what was the fucking point, nothing happened. If Liu Kang defeated Khan while in his animality then it would have been right but they still end up fighting normally anyway! I really hope I’m getting across just how stupid this is, because seriously there is so much time wasting in this movie it should technically only be ten minutes long. Anyway, the other elder gods cotton on to what was going on, bit slow for all-knowing beings, and make Khan and Kang fight properly in which Khan is defeated by being kicked in the head, seriously he gets kicked in the head and dies. I’ll also take this opportunity to say, if they set up this fight why did Khan not bring his hordes of soldiers to simply kill his enemies, after all he’s already broken the rules why not just kill by the cheapest way possible. Anyway the movie ends with Sindel and Kitana being reunited and Raiden being resurrected as an elder god and everyone is happy.... except the viewer.

The test audience were not impressed with the movie

Mercifully the movie is over and what a serious pile of pig shit it is. By all the fanboy alerts I put in this review, and trust me there are more than that but for the sake of brevity I only included the obvious ones it angers fans of MK and it also leaves so much unanswered that the casual viewer is left scratching their head. For example, what happened to Scorpion? What happened to Sub-Zero? What happened to Nightwolf? What happened to that stupid piece of CG fluff that attacked Sonya (oh and it kills Turquoise by the way, the only positive to take out of its performance). In my next blog I will do my best to try and fix this blight on the cinematic landscape, both for MK fans and for people who just want to watch a good fight movie. God help me!