Jesus Christ in shitty napkins. If ever a film deserved to enter the horrid annals of Trash Cinema history, it is Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
Mortal Kombat: Humiliation |
We should have known we were in for a buttload of pain when the VCR refused to accept this cinematic floater three times and emitted a distressed mechanical groan before finally resigned itself to its fate. The first Mortal Kombat was fine cinema - all right, it was a piece of shit, but at least it tried. We're given about thirty seconds of recap, then ten minutes of full-on wackiness as a bunch of characters from the first movie (played by actors we've never seen before) are fucked up with big style on the side of the fucking powerful pitbull by the chalupa-chomping, mudhole-stomping Shao Kahn, emperor of Outworld, and some bad guys who died in the first movie.
Cyborg ninja extraordinaire |
After fighting legions of expendable ninjas, our heroes retreat into a temple, where they ride an Atlasphere from American Gladiators into the center of the Earth and are subsequently attacked by Smoke (an invisible robot ninja with dreadlocks) and some more ninjas. Sub-Zero's older brother and Scorpion show up out of nowhere and fight for no readily apparent reason. I blacked out at this point and Jake is unwilling to speak of what happened for the next twenty minutes or so.
Well. Moving on. Suddenly we're in a top secret military cyborg laboratory and there's some yellow robot shooting spiked balls out of his chest at a stereotypical black guy who has "cybernetic strength enhancers" on his arms. The robot belches "Death is the only way out." Then some shirtless guys show up and start whipping up the shit with spiked clubs. Wait a minute, where the hell did all these Gregorian monks come from? Right about now Jake vomits heartily out the window and I run to the bathroom to down my next three months' supply of Prozac.
Ding! Evil, bitches!!! |
The movie continues in this fashion for the next forty-five minutes, but we'll forsake a plot summary in favor of the standard Trash Cinema Character Roll Call. We have:
James Remar chooses humanity over immortality. What a moron! |
Liu Kang: Winner of the Mortal Kombat tournament in the first movie. He gets his ass kicked a lot.
Rayden: NOT Christopher Lambert. Normally this would be a good thing, but this guy is even worse. WHY DON'T YOU CUT THAT MULLET, NUMBSKULL?!
Shao-Khan: Emperor of Outworld and a disgrace to bald imbeciles everywhere. He likes to smash people into a fire pit with his big hammer.
Shao-Khan's Dad: This guy appears to be a member of the Illuminati, and has a wicked old-growth mullet. Get out the hedge clippers, jerk.
Sonya Blade and Jax: Agents of some unnamed government agency. Sonya wears an unflattering tank top and Jax has metal arms.
Cyrax and Smoke: Robotic ninjas. Not much difference between these two, except that Smoke lives in the Earth's core and Cyrax lives in Nevada.
Kitana: Princess of Outworld. She's apparently a great warrior, but that doesn't stop her from being kidnaped by a bit character who died in the first movie.
Sheeva: Trout-faced ho with four arms. She sort of drops off the face of the movie halfway through.
Motaro: A cross between Diablo and a Cuban centaur. "Without your weapons, you are no match for Motaro!" Jax stomps a mudhole in his ass cause he's straight out the swamp.
Sindel: Kitana's mom. Either they have trailer parks in Outworld, or the makeup artists for this movie looted the Halloween section at Ames
Jade: Spy for Shao-Khan. He feeds her to a wall carving when she doesn't do her job right.
Not even moderately attractive women or men with metal arms can save this movie. |
Johnny Cage: Jackass. Dies in the first five minutes of the movie.
Nightwolf: Played by Native American rapper Litefoot. He teaches Liu Kang the value of turning into a ridiculous stop-motion dragon.
Baraka: Seems to be a pirate with sharp metal teeth that take up half his face. Yar, into the fire pit with you.
Ermac: Ninja in a stealthy bright red plastic outfit.
Rain: The only character more useless than Ermac. Shao-Khan gets pissed off at him and tosses him in the fire pit.
There you have it. A true pustule on the ass of cinema. A film that boasts half the budget of Evil Dead 2 and makes only slightly more sense than Fantasy Mission Force. A film that brings tears to our eyes and bile to our throats. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, we salute you. |
