DVD Reviews

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation – Blu-ray Review

By Frankie Dees Apr 27, 2011, 14:40 GMT

A new era…but for whom? The Mortal Kombat victory in the Outworld was supposed to give rise to a generation of peace on Earth. But never trust the word of the fiendish and the power mad. They’ve opened the portals linking their dimension to ours, and Earth will be overwhelmed – if a gutsy band of human heroes doesn’t acquire new kombat skills that will crush Outworld’s imaginative array of ...more

Man, I thought the original ‘Mortal Kombat’ set the bar low, but at least it was watchable. The ’97 sequel ‘Mortal Kombat: Annihilation’ is absolutely dreadful. A tedious and unforgivably dull affair that seems content to be a poor man’s ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’.

If anyone wants a synopsis of the plot, I suggest you start praying as only God could possibly comprehend or have the patience to sift through such wretchedness. The only thing I gathered was that during the first five minutes of the film, all the already questionable logic and rules established in the first film were thrown out for reasons only known to exist in the minds of lazy writers.

Robin Shou as Lui Kang and Talisa Soto as Princess Kitano are the only cast members to return with James Remar replacing Christopher Lambert as Rayden and Chris Conrad replacing Linden Ashby as Johnny Cage (more understandable here considering the shortened screentime, but what could Ashby possibly have been busy with to not reprise his role?).

I actually think James Remar is a better actor than Lambert, but the film doesn’t call for a great character actor who tries to take the material seriously. This film calls for a silly genre actor to know what he signed up for. Only Lynn Red Williams as Jax shows any sort of energy with the film mostly consisting of a lot of humorless exchanges and ‘…Power Ranger’-style martial-arts that leave no impression.

And IMDB had the gall to tell me the film was made for 30 million… you’re a filthy stinkin’ liar IMDB! Where do you get off? I would have to think hard to come up with a theatrical release that sports more ridiculous make-up and special f/x.

Just out of curiosity, I looked up some pics that released theatrically around the same time and apparently this film was bookended by ‘Starship Troopers’ and ‘Alien Resurrection’. Great films? Not really, but borderline masterpieces comparatively and at least you can tell where the money went…

The pic is presented with a 1.78:1 AVC 1080p encode that is entirely at the mercy of horrible CGI, make-up and production design. There’s some detail in the close-ups but in all honesty, the uglier this film looks, the better.

If you have to see it, I recommend finding a battered VHS copy at a pawn shop somewhere and watching it through smudged, cracked sunglasses. You’ll thank me later. The DTS-HD Master Aud track is the best thing going for the film but even then... I would suggest borrowing a tween girl’s iPod and catching up on what all that Justin Bieber fever is all about.

Special Features include a trailer for the film and a trailer for the recent vidgame. Avoid this one at all costs. I imagine there might be a lot of people that will want to catch up with this one on Blu-ray after avoiding it all these years due to bad word-of-mouth. Trust me; the word-of-mouth is true. Even fans of horrendous films will find little to like here.

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