What do you get when you take a massively successful fighting video game franchise, a hugely successful feature film, add in Brian Thompson, Musetta Vander, and a couple of American Gladiators? A Flawless Victory, with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
I guess most people don’t see it that way, but that’s why I took on this article: I want everyone to know how much I enjoy this film. I mean I have mentioned it at every single opportunity I have had to write about the franchise. So you knew this was coming, and you clicked anyway. So, let’s do this.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (AKA MK: A) picks up immediately where the cliffhanger ending of 1995’s Mortal Kombat left off. Just with an almost completely different cast.
The only people to reprise their characters are Robin Shou (as Liu Kang) and Talisa Soto (as Kitana). It should be mentioned that stuntman Keith Cooke returned to portray Sub Zero after playing Reptile in the first movie.
The casting is probably the biggest thing that stuck out to most people when it launched back in 1997. Christopher Lambert’s Raiden was iconic, but James Remar does a fantastic job taking over as the Thunder God as he has the authority and voice to pull it off.
This movie only gets better when you look at the wonderful casting choices for the new characters like Jax (who is now a main Kombatant) and Motaro. Both were American Gladiators before joining up for Mortal Kombat: Annihilation! Jax was Sabre and Motaro was the legendary Malibu with an equally legendary mane of hair. Two American Gladiators? What could be better than that? I got two things that could be better than that!
First, we have not one, but two guests from the hard-to-believe-it-exists show Baywatch Nights! Both Motaro and Sonya played characters in the David Hasselhoff-led “Lifeguards doing detective and X-Files stuff” series that I suggest every one of you watch. In my view, it is better than the original Baywatch show because it is so unbelievably 90s and so much fun. Season 2 has some of the most ridiculous premises that make me so happy.
For example, The Creature (the episode with Malibu/Motaro) is about a murderous part human/part fish… that wants to have a baby? There are lots of scenes in nightclubs too and an extremely disturbing ending that also has Mitch (David Hasselhoff) running from a fireball in a tunnel. This is only the tip of the amazing iceberg that is Baywatch Nights, and I need to stop writing about it or this will become a Mitch Buchannon article.
The second is B-Movie superstar, Musetta Vander. In 1997, she was well known in film circles for her role as Lash in Oblivion and Oblivion 2: Backlash. She has the most interesting IMDB profile and is now a real estate agent. She was not in Baywatch Nights, which is slightly surprising and also a shame.
Vander had a great role in Buffy The Vampire Slayer as the mantis woman monster, and she was a love interest for Harry Kim in Star Trek Voyager, but Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is how most people know Musetta. She plays Queen Sindel, mother of Kitana and delivers the iconic line “Too bad you… will die!” when reuniting with her daughter upon invading the Earthrealm.
Why all this time spent on casting, connections to American Gladiators, and Baywatch Nights? They all share something very special in common with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation; they are all considered to be “cheesy”, “bad,” or “guilty pleasures.” They are also all unabashedly fun productions to enjoy and give you what you didn’t expect.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation went a different direction to get to the same destination than the first film did. It stuffed every single character they could find in the movie and included more fights, more action, and some of the most unbelievable dialogue and broad performances ever.
And it works.
Just like somehow Mitch from Baywatch hunting aliens and cryptids works on a weird level, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation works because it is exactly what the video game was. Over-the-top fighting, colorful completely unbelievable characters, and a script that might as well have been from the video game’s cutscenes that simply serve to keep the action moving and not impart any special wisdom to the audience. The filmmakers know what people wanted — more Mortal Kombat. The critics obviously didn’t like it, and while it made some money, it didn’t hit the heights of the original 1995 film.
The plot is similar to the first and every other Mortal Kombat entry in the franchise: Earthrealm warriors fight to defend the world from Outworld’s evil machinations. Liu Kang goes on a quest to find Nightwolf and find the “Animal Instinct” within him so he can defeat Shao Khan. Again this just serves to keep the fights moving from location to location. One of the more impressive scenes features Cyrax, the Cyber Lin Kuei ninja, battling Sonya and Jax in the medical facility where Jax is getting his arms augmented because… reasons.
I won’t pretend there aren’t issues with the film – the CGI is very dated and there are several unfinished effects because the studio said it was “good enough.” The travel spheres (velocispheres) the heroes use to zoom around underground to the next plot-dictated location feel like an afterthought that has a striking resemblance to the atlasphere balls from American Gladiators.
Again there is that B-movie feel to the film, and I wonder if it would have been more appreciated as a direct-to-video entry, as people’s expectations would be in line with the production.
The soundtrack, much like the first film, is way better than it has any right to be. Another perfect snapshot of the club/dance music of the time, including Fire by Scooter that most anyone alive in the 90s will remember. It even has a completely 90s nonsensical music video.
When the 2021 film was formally announced, I was cautiously excited because this is exactly the Mortal Kombat I enjoy. Silly campy fun with over-the-top everything set to a pumping dance soundtrack. As time has gone on and more has been revealed of the new film, the outlook is good. I don’t need everything to be grimdark realistic because that wasn’t what drew me to the games as a 10-year-old kid. It was how colorful and ridiculous the games were. People ripping out spines and then getting up for another fight. The fact that people thought the violence was realistic missed how cartoonishly gory it was. That still holds true to modern-day games as well.
We are only hours away from the film’s release here in the United States and cannot wait to see what they do. I doubt it will come close to the rewatchability of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, but as long as it is fun, count me in!
If you liked this Rewind Review, be sure to check out the whole series as we take a look back at some of our favorite corners of popular culture from years past!
