Mortal Kombat Week: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) Review

A comedy that proves to be a cinematic fatality for the franchise.

Previously on “Mortal Kombat”, The film’s 5 protagonists: Liu Kang, Kitana, Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage, & Raiden went to China to celebrate Earthrealm’s victory in the previous film’s titular tournament. However that celebration becomes short lived when Outworld’s emperor, Shao Kahn, crashes the party with an attempt to merge Earthrealm and Outworld. In an effort to save Earthrealm and undo Shao Kahn’s plan, Liu Kang must reunite Kitana with her newly resurrected mother, Sindel.

That is basically what the film is literally about and man, do we have a stinker with this one. after the success or the first film, New Line & Threshold fast tracked this sequel into development and due to its rushing process, this film was bound to be a disaster.

First things first, most of the cast from the first film did not return: Linden Ashby read the script and turned it down (more on that in a little bit), Bridgette Wilson was filming “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, and Christopher Lambert also turned it down after reading the script. Hell, the film ended up with a new director after Paul W.S. Anderson chose to direct and film the underrated Sci-Fi Horror classic, “Event Horizon”, instead. Upon…