The following is a reposting of an article/rant made by a now-former member of the Mortal Kombat fan community named “FatSatan”. Like many people, FatSatan HATED Mortal Kombat Annihilation; this prompted him to collect every single thing he found wrong about the movie and gripe about it. After the website it was hosted on went offline, I got his permission to host it on my server. After showing it to Jennifer this evening (in response to her question asking what was so bad about the movie), I decided to go ahead and post it on the main site and not just on a subdomain somewhere. So, for your enjoyment… his Ultimate Mortal Kombat Annihilation Rant.
Any serious MK fan will have found their first true disappointment in MK Annihilation. After the entertaining and exciting MK: the Movie, things couldn’t go wrong… could they? Oh yes, they could. Even the biggest MK3 hater must admit that at that moment, when they sat in the movie theatre or perhaps at home with the rented MKA tape in the VCR, they witnessed a piece of sheer hell that was so disgusting, so embarassing, so utterly devoid of anything positive that it became the truly lowest product MK ever spawned. No MK:Special Forces can top that. There were so many things wrong with this movie that everyone has their own list of details to MKA that sucked. The fans were disillusioned and mortified, but also infuriated. And so it became clear that the evil company known as Threshold Entertainment in fact did not care about pleasing the real fans – they cared about cold hard cash. What follows here is a detailed rant about all that I could find wrong about MKA, and things that have been pointed out to me by others. Let’s hear it guys, one more time: why MKA is the devil.
It really does seem that not a decent piece of dialogue passes the screen. This script was written by someone who is the creative equivalent of a retarded jellyfish with writer’s block. It was written and obviously, sadly, never proof-read. For the movie shows that pieces were cut from the original novel without properly making sure that this would not interfere with the story later on.
I wasn’t all too sure about this sequel when I rented it, because I’d heard there would be inconcistencies with the game. Fair enough. The famous MK theme, with a weird beat added which it didn’t need, accompanied the New Line cinema logo, and so began the intro.
Not bad… then, suddenly, some cheap flashbacks. I remember reading in a preview of the movie that the creators “didn’t want this to be called the sequel, because it was part 2 in the saga…” well, what the fuck does that mean? Part 2 is the sequel, the sequel is part 2. Moving on.
What… what is this stupid voice narrating? It fits MK by no means… OH GOOD LORD. It was then I learned that the great Chris Lambert’s role as Rayden was now filled by an incompetent piece of crap with a huge crack between his teeth and a wig that couldn’t fool Tina Turner. I guess things really started going downhill from there…
The often mentioned mistakes… At the end of the first movie, Liu’s shirt is torn and dirty, Sonya is still dressed in that silly leather thing (this is not the place to discuss it, but what kind of sense did it make for Shang to dress Sonya up in that? I guess he was just horny), and Cage had still lost his $500 sunglasses (asshole) in the fight with Goro. And yet Liu now has a squeaky clean shirt, Sonya wears some shorts and a white T-shirt (plus her hair is shorter), and Cage has new sunglasses. I would like an official statement from Threshold ensuring me that the Temple of Light has a little souvenir shop, a clothing shop and a laundrymat. Of course then I’d still like an explanation as to how they can do all these things in the few seconds that elapse between the two movies.
The lack of $$$ quickly becomes clear when the sky turns purple… and we can see obvious lines around the buildings and people. Not enough cash to make it look real enough… sigh.
Ah, we get our first glimpse of what promises to be an outrageous retardality to all the freaky characters of MK. Motaro has… hair… and huge teeth. I don’t care that he’s half horse, he doesn’t have those teeth in the game and he doesn’t need them in the movie. Sheeva constantly seems to be losing balance and trying to grip onto air to regain it, because those silly moves she makes can’t possibly be warming-ups.
Apparently Larry Kasanoff kidnapped Haim Saban’s clothing designer, because all of a sudden we’re in Power Ranger land. The ninjas wear odd constructions of plastic and rubber which hardly resemble the game’s suits anymore… the same applies for Shao Kahn and Sindel. It’s just sad to see them like that… so sad.
I haven’t seen much of Brian Thompson… save for his role in the X-files as the stabhappy alien (?) guy. But regardless of how people claim he’s a good actor outside of this role, I say he kills it just as much as Remar killed Rayden. For one thing, he’s so fucking short. They couldn’t even change the camera angles, make him stand on something, do ANYTHING to make him look bigger than the regular actors? Aside from that, his voice sucks. He talks like a whiney kid. “Your world becomes my world…” not to mention he has the tendency to slip into a speech impediment. At least his outfit made him look even more like a retard. Is that good? Meh.
Well, it’s obvious by now that concistency isn’t a high priority… I guess that’s why Rayden can’t decide to wear his hair tied or loose. Take notice at the start of the movie and you’ll find it switches between loose and tied in the blink of an eye. Did I mention that James seems to look only more mongloid when his hair is in a ponytail?
Shang Tsung’s one-liners from MK the Movie are sooo classic… so let’s befoul them by making Sindel use one of them… badly. “Too bad you…. will die.” she says in the opening. Cheeeaaap.
Haim Saban’s influence seems to grow as Kahn and Rayden do battle… I’m aware that Rayden can fly, but since when can Kahn? Doing twelve hundred back flips/air screws doesn’t keep you airborne, you flaming moron.
Someone imposes their glove fetish upon us… because all of a sudden, the ninjas, Kahn and Sindel wear them. Be so kind as to point out to me when they ever wore gloves.
The cheapness of the props drips off every frame… During the battle with Rayden, Shao Kahn’s helmet’s “wing” flaps like crazy. An obvious piece of plastic.
Shao Kahn has Cage by the throat, and Rayden offers himself in his place. A chance to kill Rayden instantly and be done with him… no, instead Shao Einstein decides to snap Cage’s neck – eliminating his chance to kill Rayden, giving a worthless death to an important character, and winning himself his first star for UltraMoron.
Helplessly trying to form a script, the rabid monkeys that wrote it decided to throw in the American Gladiator Balls as a means of moving under the earth… what??? Perhaps ex-gladiator Sandra Hess thought she could help worsen things.
“What is closed can also be opened again.” “Those arms are not your strength, they are your weakness.” This kind of bullshit I can make up standing on my head. Whipping out some contradictions won’t make you a wise man, mr. Remar. I got another one for you: “A bad movie sucks ass”.
As we take a look into Outworld, I’m slowly going mad by the squeaky sound of lightning. Who the hell made these sound effects?
I guess Shao Kahn’s plastic helmet fell apart at one point, seeing as how he doesn’t put in on anymore through the rest of the movie. Even when he puts on his helmet, the mask stays off… WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS SMOKING? I don’t want to see some bald retard dressed like a depressed 80s popstar… I want Shao Kahn dammit!
Perhaps the ultimate mistake in the creation of this movie – Shinnok shows up… as Shao Kahn’s father… and Rayden’s… and they are half-brothers… and Shinnok has a lame accent… and he too looks nothing at all like his game version.
A detail, but not unimportant – Smoke shows up, with a rocket launcher? Aside from that, his buddy Sub-Zero destroys him without much thought… while in the game he would probably risk his life to save him.
The next moment, Kitana takes out here folded fans… why can’t they look anything like the game? These weird, useless things suck! As she bloodlessly hacks the enemies with the folded fans, retarded sound effects accompany the idiotic scene… when she finally unfolds them, she catches exactly one blow with them – showing immediately how useless they are like this, as swords can go through them.
Sub-Zero appears on stage… sliding by an icebridge… ICEMAN ripoff… by his LEGS… christ. Scorpion then shows up using not one, but two harpoons, both looking strangely bone-like. An embarassing fight scene begins with really badly done sound effects. At the end of the fight Scorpion leaves us with the painful “Suckers!”. Note that after this, neither Scorpion nor Sub-Zero makes a return – which makes fairly little sense. A sign that this script was not proof-read, or no one cared.
Sonya finds Jax… lying under a cloth. Why? Obviously, so we can’t see his arms yet. But why in god’s name did he need any kind of operation? When Motaro rips off his implants later on, there isn’t a drop of blood. Besides, he rips off one of them himself without showing pain. Bullshit.
Who was the MORON who thought Jax needed to act like a street thug? Possibly the same that implemented this in MK:Special Fuck-up. Hearing Lynn Williams try to spit out “I’ma split aight” painfully shows that the man is not used to talk like this… that, or he’s just a sucky actor.
Cyrax TALKS… why? The guy doesn’t have a soul, not an active one at least – his talking is bullshit. And let’s not forget the HORRIBLE ‘slowmo fall’ scene that happens when Cyrax breaks the glass. The expressions on Hess’ and Williams’ faces… didn’t they realise they were being filmed? Raaaargh.
We skip to an argument between Sheeva and Motaro… I could see how Sheeva’s insult would offend Motaro (“you belong behind bars in a zoo”). Motaro replies with “If those bars would keep me away from you, Sheeva, I would welcome them.” Now call me crazy, but how is that an insult? He basically said “I don’t like being around you!” AAARGH! I’m crushed! And so is Sheeva, because she jumps up like he just called her a manwhore.
Rain’s wonderful appearance… a wimp’s voice and a wimpier death. Death by mace-knock into fire. Let’s not forget that this is Shao Kahn’s wonderful Ultra-retard move #2: He kills one of his generals because he chose not to kill two kombatants, rather imprison them? WTF??? Just kill them now, mongloid! Oh well, we hear of Kabal and Stryker… no seeing them though. More cutting from those bastards.
We move to the scene where Liu walks through the desert, looking for the Hopi (goddamit) Mesa… how does our Chinese friend know where to go anyway? Oh well… he arrives, I guess. Note to script writer: a mesa is a flat rocky elevation, NOT A GODDAMNED PIECE OF PLAIN DESERT YOU IDIOT!
Oh well… Liu trips over animal bones and freaks out. Yes, I guess a few bovine bones will scare a guy who’s faced a soul-stealing sorcerer, a reptilian shapeshifter and a guy who can throw ice.
The absolutely dreadful camera-work when the wolf attacks Liu… he’s wrestling with the camera man. This is the bullshit viewpointing I’m used from the old Shaft movies… in which is was hilarious, btw.
Nightwolf doesn’t waste a moment at being gay, does he? “Pretty cool huh? It’s my animality. Feel your animality!” And voila, Nightwolf too makes an unexplained disappearance. Liu has some wet dream about his fears and his animality, blah blah. Hello, it’s Jade.
Oh – and she’s miraculously turned from black to oriental, Siberian to be precise. And she’s evil – how wonderfully we emulate the game’s storyline.
I guess we’ll never learn what Nightwolf’s other two tests were. Why the hell does Earth’s champion of mortal kombat need to perform tests for some gay hermit shaman anyway? And what’s the use of them? Just teach the guy his animality and send him off, you flaming YMCA reject.
Liu to Jade: “Is this another one of Nightwolf’s crazy tests?” Note how he stresses that one word. He must be an expert on these tests, having been through exactly one and having known Nightwolf for two minutes or so.
We move to a scene where Kitana is caged by Shao Kahn… cliche. Some rancid, quiet sound effect is heard when she makes a futile attempt at spitting on Kahn.
Another scene… Sonya in the desert. She moves only a little away from Jax, yet her fight with Mileena lasts long enough for him to come help her. Is he jerking off to test his new arms or what? Anyway… Mileena is played by a different actress. Mileena should look EXACTLY like Kitana, plus we know that Talisa Soto isn’t a bad fighter. I guess she turned down the disgusting mud wrestle scene.
Oh well… we don’t hear Mileena’s name anyway. Explain that to the newbie you took to the movie. Luckily Sonya helps us a little by “thinking” that Mileena IS Kitana… while they don’t look alike – at all. A sick mudfight begins which is a nice illustration of Threshold’s purile view on the fans. Fuck you, Larry Kasanoff!
Skipping ahead somewhat… Perhaps the ultimate embarassment of the movie, Rayden’s makeover to a ‘mortal’. Now, if he’d gotten a somewhat cool suit, maybe this wouldn’t have been so dreadful. But they’ve dressed him in some sort of gay Arabian Nights suit and given him a crewcut. Wh… what?
By the time Kahn (goddammit, wear your mask if you’re going to wear your helmet) and Sindel arrive at the temple, it becomes clear that there was only money for one centaur in this movie… funny, in MK3 it seemed like most of Kahn’s forces were made up of them.
Now… this may be just me, but I thought Jade wasn’t THAT hot. Sure, she’s a model, but does that justify making every male character drool like a puppy over her? Kissing up to the actress from the writers most likely.
Rayden once again mentions family, and at this moment I need to restrain myself from tossing the remote through the TV. Fuck you James Remar!
As they enter Outworld, Liu Kang refers to the ruined royal temple Edenia… DO YOUR RESEARCH ASSHOLES! Edenia was the realm before it was fused with Outworld, NOT just some damn temple.
The Eiffel Tower… good god… how much more cliche can you get? EVERY old movie in which world domination, world wars, alien attacks on the world or whatever happened, we see shots of big monuments… and the Eiffel Tower is NEVER skipped. Soooo goddamn cheap.
Liu goes off to free Kitana… and is ambushed by a bunch of disgusting rubber-faced Barakas. First of all, they should’ve just done ONE. Second, why not use the same junk that was used for MK2? If you hadn’t noticed, you cheap Threshold bastards, they used all kinds of everyday crap to put those costumes together!
OK, this has to be the most embarassing, mortifying, disgusting, cheap, lame, retarded, demented, lowest stunt the company pulled in the whole movie. Baraka falls into the fire… hey look, it’s RAIN AGAIN! Those cheap fucks recycled the material and thought we wouldn’t notice! FUCK YOU THRESHOOOLD!
OK… I’m cool, I’m cool. Poor Sheeva. Not only was she played by a real actress instead of using animatronics like for Goro, she also doesn’t get a fight – she’s merely squished by a cage.
Remar’s acting abilities, which I still believe are void, are shown once again when he vomits the line “It cannot be” as if he’s saying “I wish I wasn’t here right now…”
Sonya: “Your dad is an Elder God? Funny how you forgot to mention that.” First of all – since when does Sonya have even a clue of what an Elder god is? Second, what the hell does it matter? It doesn’t change the situation one goddamn bit. Fuck you, retarded jellyfish writers.
Rayden: “I will pray for you all.” OK… to who? He just explained the Elder gods lied to him, so he won’t be getting much help from them.
When Rayden fights three (check again – THREE) Raptors, one simply disappears… ugh.
Oh well, Shao Kahn gets his third, and last star, making him SuperUltraMegaThunderMoron – by making sure everyone has a person to fight in the end. He could’ve avoided this by perhaps, I don’t know, gather his whole fucking army there, but no – he wants it to be a fair fight.
Oh, the horror. Animalities. Retarded, ridiculous animalities. Two B-movie monsters dish it out. Liu doesn’t look anything like the dragon from the game, maybe that’s because the monster fight was probably ripped from the movie “Gullable Gargoyle vs. The Ugly Nuclear Thingamabob from the Dark Swamp”.
And then there’s the semi-dramatic arrival of the Elder gods, which still doesn’t make much sense. Why did the Elder gods lied to Rayden? Who knows, who cares. This script must stay radically inconcistent. And that sucky distorted voice pissed me off just as much.
Ooh, it’s all cool and tough as the MK theme kicks off along with the Elder god’s voice (notice my sarcasm, please do), and Liu and Kahn fight on… Kahn apparently performed a dog animality, because he barks in battle.
Ooh, they won, they won, yay MK. You can quit crying Liu, Rayden is resurrected because Threshold is too creatively impotent to not put a feelgood ending to the movie. Sonya and Jax try a feeble highfive, perhaps they should’ve trained more. And even though Sonya’s been whining about her lovely Johnny all through the movie, she seems to have forgotten about him now – at least, she doesn’t ask Rayden to resurrect him or something. Ooh, I almost forgot the quick shots of monuments – yes, now we perfectly copied every old cliched movie. Hurrah!
And finally, Rayden mentions family again. At this time I can no longer control myself and demolish both my TV and VCR. The End.
An oldie but goodie (rant, that is). MKA was a stinker.