MORTAL KOMBAT ANNIHILATION First off, lets go back a few years... Mortal Kombat was, and still is, the best and most successful video game-to-movie transition to date (there have been a few of these; Super Mario Brothers <crap>, Double Dragon <so good it went straight to home video>, and Street Fighter <better than these but couldn't hold a candle to MK>).  The filmmakers knew what they had to do (show off the characters of the first game and stick to the games <thin> plot) and did it well, having an adequate storyline linking the fight scenes, and having just enough character development to make you care for the characters (for the record, they were Sonya, Johnny Cage, Liu Kang, Kitana, Raiden, Shang Tsung, Goro, Scorpion, Sub Zero, and Kano).  The cinematography was perfect; the sets looked realistic and the exterior scenes looked beautiful and surreal.  Too bad the soundtrack wasn't too good (More Kombat, the sequel to the soundtrack, was pretty good, I have to admit.  Has a God Lives Underwater track!). Now the sequel comes along. And it was utter shit. This movie went WAAAAAY out of its way to hurt me, and I don't know why.  I payed my admission, I enjoyed the first film, I had expectations that the makers knew what they had to do (make a film version of MK2 & 3, and throw in the characters introduced in the two games, and follow the plotline). And they completely and utterly let me down. My problems with it?  Theres a lot, so hang on... A> Most of the returning characters were recast.  Sonya, Raiden, Jax (I think, he only had a cameo in MK), and maybe Sub Zero, Scorpion and Reptile (never saw their faces and they didn't have any lines).  Only Liu Kang and Kitana survived, and they were the only characters that didn't annoy the hell out of me.  Sonya looked a hell of a lot better in the first film (I cant remember the actresses names, sorry), and Raiden...first of all, Christopher Lambert was PERFECT...I guess he was too expensive this time round...hes been replaced by an actor whom I recognized but can't remember his name (sorry I want to get the pain out without doing the research, shame on me)...his weird, unsettling smooth hairless chest REALLY freaked me out.  Oh, and Johnny Cage stayed the same, although he got killed off in the first five minutes. B> Characters.  I think the scriptwriters were overburdened by the amount of characters they had to shove into the plot, cause just about everyone was terrible and bland.  Except for Kang and Kitana...they actually ACTED.  Raiden was dry and wussy, Jax was as stereotypical as Barret in Final Fantasy VII (big angry black man, like we haven't seen THAT before), Sonya was exceedingly bland...she just kind of wandered through the film...the only time she was interesting was when she fought Mileena in a muddy environment (sheesh talk about tailoring to the 12-18 male demographic).  Sub Zero had only a cameo that baffled me; it made absolutely no sense.  He shows up, fights Scorpion, then vanishes.  Scorpion's cameo was exactly the same, shows up, fights Sub Zero, poof hes gone.  Nightwolf also shows up, does something boring, then HUZZAH hes out of the film.  Only thing he had to do was morph from wolf into human, and knock out Kang so he can learn his animality (if that doesnt make sense, sorry, thats what the film actually did).  The Emperor was a regular-size guy (c'mon, in the game he was twice the size of a human)...looked kinda like Thom Christopher (Hawk from Buck Rogers) on steroids...or maybe a little like Rondo Hatton.  He just had an inexplicable fight with Raiden, whined to his dad (one of three Elder Gods, and father of Raiden as well), hit on Kitana, rode a horse, and fought Kang at the end.  Wow.  And he rules Outworld?  All Shiva did was pose with her four arms, scuffle with Mutaro, and get crushed by a cage.  Seriously.  Mutaro...lessee...he wandered around, had the scuffle with Shiva, and got his pony ass whooped by Jax.  I do have to admit this, his cg body (as well as Shiva's) looked PERFECT.  No matte lines, so jerky animation.  Too bad the rest of the films digital effects werent like that (see complaint C).  Smoke & Cyrax showed up...no character there, so they were adequate.  Show up, boom, gone.  I think Rain did too...but he just popped up and got beaten by Sonya and/or Jax (it all happened so fast I coulnd't tell, kinda like watching an expert marksman play a shooting gallery, duck pops up, boom its gone in less than a second).  There were a bunch of Reptiles and Barakas too...and Baraka had the WORST mask I have EVER seen....it looked like a full head mask.  Ugh. Kabal and Striker were mentioned...they were defeated in what I assume was "a scene too expensive to film".  Or would take too much half-assed effort to write, apparantly. Lastly, Sindel.  Lessee....got her hair colour wrong (black with tiny tiny white highlights...in the game her hair was white with black streaks...maybe they thought people would get her confused with Raiden...which doesnt make too much sense since Raiden gets a buzz-cut later in the film!).  ALL she does is a> scream, and b> do ONE hair flip.  She gets defeated in another scene too expensive to film, or the writers were too lazy to figure it out. Jade was in it too...tried to seduce Kang, turned out to be bad, vanished from the film.  Nice legs though. C> Effects.  This film looked like shit.  The digital effects looked exactly like that; added in digital effects.  Every time you could see a sky overhead, you could the see the fucking matte lines!!  Every scene looked like it took place on a set...except for Sonyas mud battle with Mileena (who, by the way, was never referred to by name <a very nasty habit of this film, did the same with Baraka, Reptile, Rain, Scorpion...>....just popped up, fought, and boom, gone).  And the hall of the elder gods.  But when Sindel blows up the whole place (the only time she screams), it looks like a model.  Hell, every time they needed a wide shot of a real-world location, it was either stock footage or a painfully fake looking model. as a wrap up, they had too many characters, kept throwing them into scenes then killing them off way too quickly, never even bothering to name them on most occasions, and the plot made absolutely no sense.  you dont know where they are at any moment, nor do you care. In general, the whole film felt like a bunch of MK-loving 12 year olds wrote it....and were given 1/10th the budget of the first film to make it.  I wanted to walk out in the first five minutes.  Absolutely nothing made ANY sense, except for the fight scenes, which were nice, except theyd pause the music to let them do some philosphical bullshit line or some stupid "joke", then start up the music again.  Sigh. The only good thing about the film was the soundtrack (that and looking at kitana), and the fact that my ticket stub took $2 off the price (got it for $12.88).  Better than both the first one and More Kombat.  Only had three tracks that annoyed me, as opposed to about 60% of tracks on the first film.  Even the MK techno theme sounded better than ever; it was sped up and little annoying sound clips taken out. rating time. The film is complete and utter shit; a complete insult to ANYONE, except for the 12 year old MK freaks...theyll probably get a kick out of it, but theyre too stupid to know crap when they see it. It gets the anti-coveted Djubuti Turkey, the lowest rating I can give. avoid Mortal Kombat Annihilation at all costs.  it cant be reasoned with, it cant be bargained with, it doesnt feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and absolutely will not stop, until you are (brain) dead.