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redfiona99The Case for the Prosecution:
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation has issues. Many. Not only having one of those words I just can't spell in the title. Other little things like replacing Christopher Lambert as Raiden. Now, it's not that I don't like James Remar, but Christopher Lambert was excellent as Raiden. He's one of the few actors that can do the changeable required of a thunder God. He is one of the best things about the first film. But you know, James Remar does a passable job, even in a terrible wig.
The terrible wig is also not a major problem, and is thankfully dispensed with about halfway through. There are plenty of other dodgy wigs throughout, but it is probably the worst.
Brian Thompson actually makes a damn good Shao Khan, but when is he ever bad in anything?
No, the real, big, problem with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is that it tries to fit in 9000 characters in a space where 5 barely fit. To do this, they unceremoniously kill off one of our heroes from the first film and kidnap and hide a different one and then throw in all* the characters from the game that they didn't have in the first one. This creates two problems:
1 - To people like me who have never played the game, there are random 5 minute cameos that make for a very disjointed film.
2 - To people who have played the game, they want to know why they're only getting 5 minute of x and why x's bit stops so abruptly. Seriously, two characters turn up, are mystic, say they want to help the heroes, either barely do or don't at all and then vanish, never to be heard of again. Several others die five minutes after they appear. I have been lead to believe that several of these rushed characters also apparently bear no resemblance to their video game selves, so their fans are going "but that's not x".
No one is satisfied. If they'd maybe cut it down to a handful of new characters, there would have been time to use them properly and it would have been a more satisfying movie.
The scene itself:
Why The Scene Is So Good:
You know how the first film gets even better when the theme tune kicks in. Well the sequel only gets good when the theme music plays.
First you have the Scorpion vs Sub-Zero fight, which is fun once they get going, even if it highlights the 500 characters here to get killed off or cameo and vanish problem, because neither of those two characters appear outside of that single scene.
Then there's the Raiden vs multiple snakes fight, which is the scene above, which is awesome mostly because they appear to have told the fight teams to just go at it.
It's also the famous incident of "I know those legs." I was watching the film for the first time and mid-way through the fight went, "wait, I know those kicks" and had to wait for the list of stunt performers on the end credits. I was right by the way, which means Ray Park is on a list of 4 people who I can recognise by their legs alone (Goran Ivanisevic, Roberto Carlos and Paolo Maldini are the other three).
It's a fun fight scene in a film which lacks fun.
*I have never played the game, but I believe all is a close approximation of the truth.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation has issues. Many. Not only having one of those words I just can't spell in the title. Other little things like replacing Christopher Lambert as Raiden. Now, it's not that I don't like James Remar, but Christopher Lambert was excellent as Raiden. He's one of the few actors that can do the changeable required of a thunder God. He is one of the best things about the first film. But you know, James Remar does a passable job, even in a terrible wig.
The terrible wig is also not a major problem, and is thankfully dispensed with about halfway through. There are plenty of other dodgy wigs throughout, but it is probably the worst.
Brian Thompson actually makes a damn good Shao Khan, but when is he ever bad in anything?
No, the real, big, problem with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is that it tries to fit in 9000 characters in a space where 5 barely fit. To do this, they unceremoniously kill off one of our heroes from the first film and kidnap and hide a different one and then throw in all* the characters from the game that they didn't have in the first one. This creates two problems:
1 - To people like me who have never played the game, there are random 5 minute cameos that make for a very disjointed film.
2 - To people who have played the game, they want to know why they're only getting 5 minute of x and why x's bit stops so abruptly. Seriously, two characters turn up, are mystic, say they want to help the heroes, either barely do or don't at all and then vanish, never to be heard of again. Several others die five minutes after they appear. I have been lead to believe that several of these rushed characters also apparently bear no resemblance to their video game selves, so their fans are going "but that's not x".
No one is satisfied. If they'd maybe cut it down to a handful of new characters, there would have been time to use them properly and it would have been a more satisfying movie.
The scene itself:
Why The Scene Is So Good:
You know how the first film gets even better when the theme tune kicks in. Well the sequel only gets good when the theme music plays.
First you have the Scorpion vs Sub-Zero fight, which is fun once they get going, even if it highlights the 500 characters here to get killed off or cameo and vanish problem, because neither of those two characters appear outside of that single scene.
Then there's the Raiden vs multiple snakes fight, which is the scene above, which is awesome mostly because they appear to have told the fight teams to just go at it.
It's also the famous incident of "I know those legs." I was watching the film for the first time and mid-way through the fight went, "wait, I know those kicks" and had to wait for the list of stunt performers on the end credits. I was right by the way, which means Ray Park is on a list of 4 people who I can recognise by their legs alone (Goran Ivanisevic, Roberto Carlos and Paolo Maldini are the other three).
It's a fun fight scene in a film which lacks fun.
*I have never played the game, but I believe all is a close approximation of the truth.
