Revision as of 04:51, 2 October 2019

Mortal Kombat Annihilation
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John R. Leonetti
Written by	Screenplay: Brent V. Friedman Bryce Zabel Story: Lawrence Kasanoff Joshua Wexler John Tobias Video Games: Ed Boon John Tobias
Produced by	Lawrence Kasanoff
Starring	Robin Shou Talisa Soto James Remar Brian Thompson Sandra Hess Lynn "Red" Williams Irina Pantaeva
Cinematography	Matthew F. Leonetti
Edited by	Peck Prior
Music by	George S. Clinton
Production company	Threshold Entertainment
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release dates	United States: November 21, 1997 United Kingdom: February 13, 1998 Australia: April 9, 1998
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$40 million
Box office	$51 million

Mortal Kombat Annihilation is a 1997 martial arts action film that was the sequel to 1995's Mortal Kombat, and was directed by John R. Leonetti, who had served as the cinematographer for the previous film. The storyline was largely an adaptation of Mortal Kombat 3, and the novelization by Jerome Preisler was released through Tor Books.

Plot

The evil emperor Shao Kahn opens a portal from Outworld to the Earth Realm and has reclaimed his queen Sindel, who is Kitana's long-dead mother. Earthrealm is therefore in danger of being absorbed into Outworld within 6 days, a fate which Liu Kang and the others must fight to prevent. Kahn kills Johnny Cage during the confrontation, and the remaining Earth Realm warriors must regroup.

Sonya enlists the help of her old partner, Jax, while Kitana and Liu Kang search for a Native American shaman named Nightwolf, who seemingly knows the key to defeating Kahn. On the way, they run afoul of the cyborg Smoke. Kitana and Liu Kang dispatch him with the aid of Sub-Zero, but Scorpion suddenly appears, attacks Sub-Zero, and kidnaps Kitana.

Rayden meets with the Elder Gods and asks them why Kahn was allowed to break the tournament rules and force his way into Earth Realm, and how he can be stopped. The answers he receives are sparse and ambiguous; one says that reuniting Kitana with her mother, Sindel, is the key to breaking Kahn's hold on Earth Realm, but another Elder God insists that the defeat of Kahn himself is the solution. Rayden is then asked by the Elder Gods about his feelings and obligations towards the mortals, and what he would be willing to do to ensure their survival.

Liu Kang finds Nightwolf, who teaches him about the power of the Animality, a form of shapeshifting which utilizes the caster's strengths and abilities. To achieve the mindset needed to acquire this power, Liu Kang must pass 3 tests. The first test is a trial of his self-esteem and focus. The second comes in the form of temptation, which manifests itself in the form of Jade, who attempts to seduce Liu Kang and make him forget about Kitana. Liu Kang resists Jade's advances, which impresses her. She offers her assistance in fighting Kahn. Liu Kang accepts Jade's offer and takes her with him to the Elder Gods' temple, where he and his friends are to meet Raiden.

At the temple, the Earth Realm warriors reunite with a newly-shorn Rayden, who explains that he has sacrificed his immortality to freely fight alongside them. Together, they head for Outworld to rescue Kitana and reunite her with Sindel.

With Jade's help, Liu Kang sneaks into Kahn's castle and rescues Kitana, while the others find Sindel. Unfortunately, Sindel remains under Kahn's control, and she escapes while a trio of Raptor warriors ambush the heroes, while Jade reveals herself to be a mole sent by Kahn to disrupt the heroes' plans. Rayden then reveals that Shao Kahn is his brother, and that the Elder God Shinnok is their father. He realizes that Shinnok had lied to him and is supporting Kahn. With renewed purpose, Rayden and the Earth Realm warriors make their way to the final showdown with Kahn and his generals. Shinnok demands that Rayden submit to him and restore their broken family, at the expense of his mortal friends. Rayden refuses and is killed by an energy blast from Kahn.

Alhough the early going is rough, Jax, Sonya, and Kitana emerge victorious against their opponents, but Liu Kang struggles with Kahn, and his Animalitly barely proves effective. Shinnok attempts to intervene and kill Liu Kang on Kahn's behalf, but two of the Elder Gods arrive, having uncovered Shinnok's treachery. They declare that the fate of Earth shall be decided lawfully, through Mortal Kombat. Liu Kang finally defeats Kahn, and Shinnok is eventually banished in to the Nether Realm.

The Earth Realm then reverts to its former and normal original state, and with Kahn's hold over Sindel finally broken, she eventually reunites with Kitana. Rayden is revived by the other Elder Gods, who bestow upon him his father's former position. With everything right in the universe once again, the Earth Realm heroes return home triumphant and home free.

Cast

• Robin Shou - Liu Kang
• Talisa Soto - Kitana
• James Remar - Rayden
• Sandra Hess - Sonya Blade
• Lynn "Red" Williams - Jax
• Brian Thompson - Shao Kahn
• Irina Pantaeva - Jade
• Reiner Schöne - Shinnok
• Musetta Vander - Sindel
• Marjean Holden - Sheeva
• Litefoot - Nightwolf
• Deron McBee - Motaro

Notable Stunt Doubles

• Tony Jaa was a stunt double for Robin Shou.
• Dana Hee was a stunt double for Talisa Soto and, appropriately enough, was also cast as Mileena.
• Nicola Berwick was a stunt double for Sandra Hess.
• Ray Park was a stunt double for James Remar and Robin Shou.
• Buster Reeves was a stunt double for J.J. Perry.
• Tyrone C. Wiggins was a stunt double for Lynn "Red" Williams.
• Mark Caso was a stunt double for James Remar and J.J. Perry.
• Theo Kypri was a stunt double for Robin Shou, J.J. Perry and Keith Cooke.

Reception

Critical Response

As was the case with the original, Annihilation was not pre-screened for critics. However, it was nowhere near as well-received as its predecessor, with 7% out of 29 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes and a dismal and embarrassing 11/100 rating score on Metacritic. Jason Gibner of Allmovie wrote, "Whereas the first film was a guilty schlock pleasure, this sequel is an exercise in the art of genuinely beautiful trash cinema." James Berardinelli of ReelViews described Annihilation as having "no story, no characters, and no coherence," while Marjorie Baumgarten of the Austin Chronicle said, "The movie is nothing more than a perpetual chain of elaborately choreographed fight sequences that...are linked together by the most flimsy and laughable of plot elements." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "D–" rating, while calling it "abysmal" and "incoherent."

Although Annihilation attempted to continue in the style of the first movie, the cast of returning characters from the original was almost completely overhauled; only Robin Shou (Liu Kang) and Talisa Soto (Kitana) reprised their roles, while the only other actor to return was Keith Cooke (Reptile in the first film) as Sub-Zero. Additionally, while the original attracted casual moviegoers as well as gamers, Annihilation catered exclusively to MK fans. The picture consequently suffered from a large and homogenous cast that was employed to depict as many Mortal Kombat characters as possible, causing a subsequent drop in characterization due to a script that attempted to accommodate them all, which resulted in many inconsistencies between the storylines of the films and the games.

Meanwhile, new supporting characters, such as Mileena, Nightwolf, Baraka, Rain, and Ermac, were either not identified by name or only made brief appearances, some while serving little to no overall purpose to the plot. In a February 2001 interview with fansite Total Mortal Kombat, actress Marjean Holden (Sheeva) expressed her displeasure at the filmmakers' treatment of her character. In the shooting script and novelization, Sheeva met her demise in an extensive fight scene with the newly-mortal Rayden, but the scene was never filmed and her screen time was scant in the finished print, with Rayden instead fighting off against the 2 Raptors and Sheeva's instant death simply coming from a falling cage. Fans had also expressed such dismay for her character. "Here was a character, that was one of the most popular the video game...and they killed her without even so much as a fight! Something I was not happy about at all. That was one of the reasons I wanted to do the role, was for the sheer fact that there were really great fights in the movie for this character, and they all got cut out."

Box Office

Annihilation was released on November 21, 1997, and its opening weekend take was $16 million, enough for a number one debut at the box office, but it was nonetheless a 30% drop from the original film's opener of $23 million. The budget for Annihilation was $40 million but the movie only grossed $36 million domestically, running short of out of $4 million. Annihilation made $51 million worldwide, a 59% drop from the original film's total worldwide box office gross of $122 million.

Legacy

Apart from being generally regarded as a good classic example of bad filmmaking, this movie was partially responsible for causing the downfall of the Mortal Kombat franchise and as well as the Mortal Kombat saga to decline and lose strength during the late '90s. Despite the success of Mortal Kombat 4 in both arcades and home console systems, a lot of MK fans started to lose interest in the series which began declining due to inevitable overexposure, including some other projects such as Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero (a 2D side-scrolling prequel in which the original Sub-Zero is the lead character) and 2 other short-lived TV shows: the animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1996) and Mortal Kombat: Conquest (1998). Defenders of the Realm lasted only 4 months and 13 episodes. Conquest was cancelled after only one season with 22 episodes to date despite being popular and having respectably high TV ratings.

In 1999, John Tobias, co-creator of the series, resigned from Midway and took a large number of Midway's staff with him. This occurred while Mortal Kombat: Special Forces was still in production. Ironically, when asked by video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly in a 1994 interview whether a Mortal Kombat game would be made without him or Ed Boon, Tobias replied, "It would never be over our dead bodies."

By the start of the new millennium, the Mortal Kombat franchise had then seemed to be a relic of the 1990s until the release of the direct-to-console Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002), which had thus then re-ignited a new interest in the series. However, this was short-lived when Midway had then on been facing bankruptcy in 2009 and eventually shutting down in the following year 2010, with all assets and intellectual properties of the franchise being sold out and absorbed by Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Additional Information

2 of the film's actors were also regulars on American Gladiators: Lynn "Red" Williams (Jax), and Deron McBee (Motaro), who were Sabre and Malibu, respectively. They eventually fight each other in the final battle of the movie.

Part of the movie was filmed on location at Parys Mountain on the island of Anglesey. The scenes involving the Temple of The Elder Gods were filmed on location at Petra, a large temple and basin located in Jordan.

The French release of the movie was known as Mortal Kombat: Destruction Finale, while the Italian release was titled Mortal Kombat 2 - Distruzione Totale (Total Destruction).

Trivia

• Earlier on in the film, Shao Kahn kills off Rain by knocking him into a pit of fire. Later on in the film, Baraka dies off after being kicked off into the same fire pit by Liu Kang, but the same previous stock footage of Rain's death much earlier on was also reused for this latter scene.

• Although both Rayden and Shao Kahn were portrayed as brothers in the film and the fallen elder god Shinnok was portrayed as both of their father, none of the characters share any relation as of in the game series' related indicia.

• Shao Kahn's quote "You will never win!" is also taken directly from one of his in-game taunts and Rayden's yell, when performing his iconic torpedo push attack, is also taken directly from the original game series.

• The French release of the movie was known as Mortal Kombat: Destruction Finale, while the Italian release was titled Mortal Kombat 2 - Distruzione Totale (Total Destruction).

• Part of the movie was filmed on location at Parys Mountain on the island of Anglesey.

• When Liu Kang is in Outworld, he talks about what Edenia had once used to be, but though, he pronounces it as ED-EEN-IA.

• Both John Medlen (Ermac) and Tyrone Wiggins (Rain) have also worked together on as a tandem of stunt coordinators.

• Although Animalities do exist in the Mortal Kombat game series, the film adaptation depicts Shao Kahn using his Animality even though his Animality is not present in any one of the video games.

• By declining to reprise her role as Sonya, Bridgette Wilson had also refused and thus turned down her supposedly-offered $750,000 payday.

Mortal Kombat Devastation

Pre-production on Mortal Kombat Devastation was initially scheduled to commence shortly after the release of Annihilation, but was shelved due to Annihilation's poor box-office performance. Nearly a decade later, it is currently in pre-production; however, MK:D has been mired in development hell for a number of years with numerous script rewrites and story changes, along with the destruction of Louisiana by Hurricane Katrina (near where part of the movie was planned to be filmed), further complicating things. Limited information regarding the film exists on the official MK website, or from Threshold Entertainment.

mink has been confirmed to direct, and the screenplay is written by Drew McWeeny. Christopher Lambert and Chris Casamassa are said to be the only confirmed cast members.

The only plot information about Mortal Kombat Devastation is that it will be a reboot of the MK film saga, confirmed by mink on IMDb; he said that the story draws from the entire universe of MK from the beginning until now. mink also stated that the reason the script is taking a long time to write is because the intellectual property or project is a joint venture between the producers (Threshold), an independent studio, and Midway and that "each party has a signficant say about the script and the project overall."

2010, 13 years after Annihilation, has been listed as a tentative release date.

Cancelled Sequel and Reboot

Pre-production on a second sequel, entitled Mortal Kombat Devastation, was initially scheduled to commence shortly after the release of Annihilation, but it was shelved due to Annihilation's poor box-office performance. It consequently has remained stagnant in preproduction for over a decade, including being mired in development hell for a number of years with numerous script rewrites and story changes, along with the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, which greatly affected one of the shooting locations. In June 2009, a bankruptcy court lawsuit saw Lawrence Kasanoff suing Midway, mentioning that a third film was in the works. Warner Bros. (which became the parent of New Line in 2008, after over a decade of both operating as separate divisions of Time Warner) ended up purchasing most of Midway's assets, including Mortal Kombat, the next month.

Actor Chris Casamassa reported in July 2009 that he was reprising his role as Scorpion and claimed that filming would begin in September of the same year, while Linden Ashby (Johnny Cage in the first film) said on Soap Talk that he read the script and planned on returning to the role. However, the film still has yet to officially go into production, and no information about the project exists on the official MK website produced by Threshold Entertainment, which has not been updated since 2004.

Bloody Disgusting reported in January 2010 that Warner Bros. had hired Oren Uziel to write a new script of the reboot, but in a May interview with G4, Uziel denied having had any contact with the studio or even being attached to the project. That same month, G4 also interviewed Paul W.S. Anderson, who had directed the original; he expressed interest in returning to the franchise, though he is not currently under consideration to do so.

In June 2013, a 7-minute short, titled Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, was created and posted on the Internet as an unofficial test shoot that served as a push for an R-rated version of the film. Directed by Kevin Tancharoen, the clip starred Michael Jai White as Jax (depicted therein as a police detective) and Jeri Ryan as Sonya Blade, with other characters such as Reptile, Scorpion, Johnny Cage and Baraka making appearances.

Soundtrack

References

1. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation at Rotten Tomatoes
2. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation - Metacritic
3. MK: Annihilation Review - Allmovie
4. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation - ReelViews, 11/97
5. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation - Austin Chronicle, 11/28/97
6. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation - Entertainment Weekly, 12/5/97
7. "What's in this movie for MK gamers? 'There are more characters in this movie from the game than last time, and there's a lot of new ones, to coincide with the fourth game.' "Mortal Kombat II - Cory Doctorow, SciFi Entertainment, 11/97; reprinted on craphound.com
8. Interview with: Marjean Holden - Total Mortal Kombat, 2/4/01
9. Box Office Mojo
10. Clint Morris (2008-02-08). "Director talks Mortal Kombat reboot". Moviehole.net. Retrieved 2008-02-08.
11. "WB Picks Up Rights to Midway Video Games". Comingsoon.net. 2009-07-06. Retrieved 2009-07-16.
12. Polybren (2009-07-08). "Third Mortal Kombat movie filming in September - Report". GameSpot.com. Retrieved 2009-07-16.
13. "Linden Ashby talks about Mortal Kombat".
14. mortalkombat.com - Threshold Entertainment
15. Finish Them! A New Mortal Kombat on the Way!
16. ^ 'Mortal Kombat' Movie in the Works as a 7-Minute Introduction Arrives - Brad Brevet (RopeofSilicon.com), 6/8/10
17. Paul W.S. Anderson Interested In Shooting Another Mortal Kombat Movie

External Links

• Official MK Site (Threshold Entertainment)
• Template:Amg movie
• Mortal Kombat: Annihilation at IMDb
• Mortal Kombat: Annihilation at Rotten Tomatoes
• Cast & crew bios at MovieTome
• Mortal Kombat: Annihilation at Metacritic
• Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension
• Top 10 Most Disappointing Video Game Movies - 411Mania.com

• 1997 films
• American films
• 1990s action films
• English-language films
• Mortal Kombat films
• Sequel films
• Films based on video games
• New Line Cinema films
• Martial arts films
• Underground Fighting films