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| "Destroy all expectations" is right.. |
It’s been about 15 years since I’ve seen this abomination. Until recently viewing it again marking the second
and perhaps final time I’ll watch it. There
are two distinct differences between my first view and the second. The first time I was expecting something along
the same level as the original, oh my teenage self does make me laugh at times
like this I do admit. The second time I
knew this movie was awful yet I watched it anyway to torture myself. It’s not as if this movie is so bad it’s good
either, it’s simply plain bad. It was on
the drive home from the theater back in 1997, yes I went to the cinema to watch
it, that my friend and I were so bummed about how terrible the movie was. His dad offered a consoling statement that
this was a sequel you can’t expect as much.
It’s an obvious enough claim now and it alerted me to the realism that its
true most originals are almost always better.
I know why you’re here though so let’s get to the part where I rip apart
this movie.
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| Halloween costume! |
The story
picks up exactly where it left off from the first movie. Why some of the lead characters have
different cloths on is mystery number one.
Shouldn’t they still have the previous wardrobe in a box labeled “MK” in
the studio somewhere? If you continue
from the same scene you should consider it but the filmmakers didn’t do much of
that in this one. Shao Kahn (Brian
Thompson) invades earth breaking the rules of the agreement of invasion. If you don’t win ten straight tournaments you
can’t touch earth! I want to stop for a
second and ask why a white man was cast to play someone with the name “Shao
Kahn”. It’s not like Mr. Thompson nailed
the role anyway so why not at least snag an Asian to portray that character?
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| Come on look at this guy, seriously? |
The big
deal is that the realm of earth is getting absorbed by Outworld in six days. Rayden (James Remar) fights Shao Kahn in a
nightmare display of choreography and “power ranger” types of dives, which also
continue throughout the movie in other fights.
Mr. Remar is a huge step backward from Christopher Lambert as the god of
thunder and lightning. He seems more
like Rayden’s lesser cousin or a younger brother named Treyden. However you’d like to view it as it’s not an
adequate substitute. Kahn resurrects a
queen named Sindel who is also Kitana’s mother and puts her under a spell to be
evil. They don’t show any of that she
just appears alongside them. Kahn eventually
gets Sonya Blade (Sandra Hess) under his foot and threatens her death. Hess is probably the only newcomer who can
keep the character she’s playing not too far off pace from the previous
film. Don’t get me wrong it’s still
disastrous mostly. Rayden meanwhile has
all of Kahn’s generals, about five or so bad guys on the brink of becoming
burnt hot dogs with his amazing electrical attacks. Rayden releases the generals in a deal with Kahn
to spare Sonya, come on Rayden you know Kahn all too well to know he won’t do
that. Kahn proceeds to “finish her” but
Johnny Cage attacks Kahn and dies instantly.
Good one bonehead Rayden, one of your guys dies and all the generals are
still alive. Fry them while you still
have your powers! He loses them when
earth is fully absorbed. I’d be frying
everything in sight including Kahn. Zap,
zap, zap is all I would desperately be doing at a time like this.
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| Liu can't complain much I suppose right? |
The bad
guys at this point are large and in charge but for some idiotic reason they all
flee by teleportation. Why run away when
you could kill them all right now, shorter movie but it would have been better. Rayden decides it’s best to split up and try
to get help while pulling his hair back.
It was hilarious to see Rayden fixing his hair in a somewhat feminine
way at a supposed critical time in the story.
Liu Kang (Robin Shou), Kitana (Talisa Soto) and Sonya go out looking for
help. Robin and Talisa are the only
holdovers from the original but their performances aren’t nearly as well this
time around. It’s not a good plan to
split up since you’d be easier to die in smaller groups or is it? Kahn had them at his mercy practically and
teleported off so perhaps the heroes feel they can try it out.
They
travel in the spheres the American gladiators used to battle with. Sonya goes after Jax but why? She always wants to work alone anyway. She finds him with some metal coverings on his
arms to make him stronger. He’s in a
military base of some sort but it’s entirely abandoned with him strapped to an
operating table. You’re comrades left
you to die when Kahn came to suck earth into Outworld. I’d be far more upset than Jax was. He’s just so happy and giddy to have his new
arms. Here comes a battle with Cyrax who
looks like a stormtrooper’s cousin if you ask me. There is no intro for Cyrax so you can only assume
he’s here to destroy Sonya and Jax. A
bunch of random guys in black cloaks also attack, who are they? I guess Kahn’s goons? It’s a terrible battle sequence in which
Cyrax goes “predator” and blows up after it gets beat. I believe Sonya performs her kiss of death
fatality as well but it’s awkward.
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| Cyrax had anger issues.. |
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| He is furious for being cut in Star Wars! Revenge at last! |
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| "Get yourself over here" for the rest of the movie |
Liu and
Kitana are looking for Nightwolf since he knows the super duper secret to
defeating Kahn. Liu seems very confident
deprived suddenly in this movie.
Extremely recent since this movie does pick up exactly where the other left
off, Liu was riding high on confidence having beaten the evil sorcerer. Now he is unable to defeat Kahn? It doesn’t connect or explain why he can’t it
just forces the issue he can’t so as to prolong the movie. They get attacked by Smoke, who looks very
similar to Cyrax the up and coming stormtrooper apprentice. Sub-Zero shows up and saves them with his
freezing attacks. Wait I thought he was
dead in the last movie? What is he doing
here? I’m so confused, how can I ever
figure this out? He is apparently the
younger brother of Sub-Zero and has a cheaper looking outfit as well. It looks Halloween costume-“esque”. Scorpion shows up although he died in the
last movie too, which isn’t explained as to why he’s back. Sub-Zero and he fight in a somewhat boring
battle. Scorpion can’t be beaten and Liu
wishes now that Johnny Cage were alive since he knows how to kill him. Anyway Scorpion captures Kitana and teleports
away while saying, “Sucker”. I guess it’s
a line he says in the video games. We
see no more Scorpion for some reason though as he seems to be very effective in
his scene. Can’t we at least get some
clarity of what happened to him? Did he
teleport to the bottom of the ocean on accident after taking Kitana to Kahn’s
place? Sub-Zero preaches to stay
together and not be alone in the fight against Kahn then promptly leaves Liu
hanging by mysteriously vanishing!
Thanks you jerk! Was this merely
a cameo for you? The power to freeze
could have come in handy.
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| Liu's new girlfriend, it seems to be working out |
Rayden
meets with gods of some sort and asks why Kahn is allowed to break the
rules. He also asks how to stop
him. It’s freaking Mortal Kombat, you
kill him with a fatality if possible you moron.
What a waste of dialogue. Rayden
opts to become mortal to show how much he loves the humans. I guess you might as well be human since your
powers are dissipating anyway. Liu
finally finds Nightwolf to be taught about bestiality, I mean animality! It’s a technique that turns you into an
animal to fight as, it’s random as to what animal you get so hope it’s not a
gerbil or rabbit. It’s pretty stupid
actually but oh well. And that’s the end
of Nightwolf, he’s in like one scene and that’s that, OK. After travelling this far for a cause that
seemingly is a big plot moment it cuts off abruptly. Liu gets involved with a chick named Jade,
who looks like she is up to no good, and offers to help defeat Kahn. He accepts and off they go all of a sudden to
meet Rayden where the gods live at a temple.
It’s bone crushingly bad dialogue after dialogue. It’s less than B-movie worthy quality and all
the computer effects are so tacky. I
still don’t know how it was released to theaters. I’ve side tracked let’s continue if I have
the strength to.
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| Hey Kitana, where's Liu? -Sonya |
Sonya
and Jax get stopped by Mileena who Sonya thinks is Kitana. Give me a break; they are totally different
from their outfits to their weapons. Why
would you think Kitana would be attacking you anyway? It’s a mud wrestling fight to the finish as
Sonya wins of course. It’s another
bumbling battle but at least it’s a mud fight with women. It quite possibly is the most memorable part
for me. What? Is that so terrible? Jax beats up some demon creature in “Whack-a-mole”
style. He really pounds on this terrible
CGI monster then it goes back down its hole, it’s really a funny scene. I mean it’s a vital part of the story as Jax
rescues Sonya from danger. They meet up
with Rayden and Liu at the temple where Rayden sports his new hair due he’s so
proud of. He also can now officially
fight with them against Kahn as a mortal.
I don’t get why that’s necessary though, keep your powers as long as
possible unless the budget for electricity is out! They all teleport with Rayden to rescue Kitana
from Kahn’s fortress when they’re supposed to be stopping earth from being
absorbed by Outworld right? It’s
confusing at times; they need to get their priorities in order. Meanwhile Kahn, Sindel and his knight’s are
marching through a canyon toward the temple.
What’s up with the knights? Where
do armored knights fit into this? All of
a sudden we’ll be laying siege to a castle!
They watch them teleport away while laughing like complete idiots. It’s weird, I don’t know.
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| MiB Alien Cockroach right? |
Liu and
Jade save Kitana and fight off a bunch of Barakas. Baraka is another character with no intro and
such. They cram so many characters into
this movie you never know what’s going on.
Who is that? What do they
do? What’s the story on them? Etc.
I’ll skip ahead to the finale as I grow weary of going over petty
dialogue that actually gets them to the boss fights. Seriously it’s horrible conversation after
the next.
Jax,
Liu, Kitana and Sonya all fight against a boss one on one. The fights are atrocious and I’ll leave it at
that. Rayden is revealed to be the
brother of Kahn with some old guy (Shinnok) as their father. Liu and Kahn turn into a hydra and Godzilla
like beast. They fight it out, change back
to humans; fight some more until Liu wins.
Rayden dies then get revived at the end by the gods. It’s silly, uninteresting and so poorly
executed that even completing the review for it is extremely tedious. Don’t ever watch this movie, pretend it doesn’t
exist. You’ll live longer for it.
It’s a bumbling
display of battle scenes accompanied with some of the poorest acting I have ever
seen. I felt by watching this that it was
forced into production simply to capitalize on the franchises success with the
previous film and all the video games.
What I didn’t enjoy mostly was the severe lack of character introductions. If you didn’t follow the games then you get left
wondering what everyone’s name is and at times whose side they’re on. Earth is also incredibly desolate as if all
humans, animals and even insects were all destroyed. You only see the handful of characters from
start to finish. Character development
is shallow and almost nonexistent. It’s
really a movie I would guess most viewers wouldn’t be able to watch all the way
through and I can’t blame them.
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