mortal kombat : annihilation starring : robin shou ( liu kang ) , tailsa soto ( princess kitana ) directed by : john r . leonetti , written by : brent v . friedman and bryce zabel from a story by lawrence kasanoff , john tobias , and joshua wexler . rated pg-13 by the mpaa for some strong language and plenty of violence , mostly of the martial arts variety . * bah-buh-bah-bah-buhbuh , bah-buh-bah-bah-bahbuh , bah-bah-bah-buh-bahbuh , bah-bah-buhbahbuhbuhbah * okay , so chances are you've heard that now-famous outcry and the techno music that follows it , either on commercials for the movies , or the video games , or on the soundtracks for the games or movies , or in the movies themselves . in this , the sequel to the original mortal kombat film , titled mortal kombat : annihilation , that theme music is still intact , and , just like the last time , bolts into our ears right from the new line cinema logo . however , it's almost the only thing that's still around from the first film . in order to review mortal kombat : annihilation , one must have an opinion of the original , since this essentially just tries to be more of the same . okay . i truly liked mortal kombat . yes , i really did . maybe the plot was sort of basic , but it was * fun * . it was one of the most * fun * movies of the summer of 1995 . it had some funny dialouge , some appealing actors ( and some not-so-much ) , some nice effects , plenty of extremely well-choreographed martial arts battles , and a cool , pumping soundtrack . and , of course , it was directed very well by the talented paul anderson , who could have a great career as long as he avoids crap like event horizon from now on . now the sequel is upon us . the martial arts battles aren't as well choreographed , but they're still pretty good . unfortunately , the directing is nowhere near as good as in the original , and it dilutes the quality of the fights . the villian isn't nearly as imposing , many of the original actors have been replaced for the worse , the effects might have been impressive in 1992 , it's filled with extraneous subplots and characters , and , well , basically this movie just plain sucks . robin shou is honestly trying here . you can tell . he wants this to really not suck . sandra hess wants to have an acting career , that's obvious . . . so it's good news for her that she's better than the original actress behind sonya blade ( bridgette wilson ) . in fact , she's not bad at all . i wouldn't mind horribly if i saw her again . . . in some other film , of course . talisa soto seems sort of bored with this . she obviously beefed up her martial arts training , but when she's acting , she's rather stiff , just like in the original . of course , that's kitana's character for you , i guess . as a side note , her sudden romance with liu kang is utterly ludicrous , and has no place here - it's just another piece of excess baggage for the plot to carry . the only person putting forth anything resembeling effort is litefoot , who plays nightwolf , at least for the whopping two minutes that he's on the screen . this guy deserves better . james remar replaces christopher lambert as rayden , and does a shoddy job . lambert was perfect for this role . however , remar isn't given much to work with here , anyway . our villian , shao kahn ( brian thompson ) shouts a lot , but that doesn't mean he's threatening . kahn's father is more interesting , but doesn't do much . johnny cage , the most fun of the characters in the original , is played by another actor as well ( linden ashby is having fun doing " melrose place " by now ) , and is killed in the first five minutes . this is pure idiocy at work , people . there's no reason for his death . it just opens up for another comic relief character to appear , jax , played by lynn " red " williams , previously known as " sabre " on american gladiators . he gets a few funny lines , but is no where near as amusing as johnny cage was . williams just tries too hard to be will smith . he seems to have some talent buried in him that briefly shines through here and there , but overall , it's not really on display here . tons of characters show up for no reason , and bring up sub-plots that have no point . one example is when sub-zero ( keith cooke ) appears . he states that the sub-zero that liu kang killed in the original was his brother , and that a robot , smoke , has been reprogrammed to go after kang , instead of original target , sub-zero himself . why was the robot going after subbie ? why was it reprogrammed ? why did sub-zero bother to save kang ? why did he take up the mantle of his brother ? how does he do those cool ice manuvers ? why do none of the writers of this movie care to tell us any of this ? sub-zero is off the screen about three minutes after he appears , and never comes back . what was the point ? other characters , like rain ( tyrone wiggins ) and mileena ( dana hee ) , pop up in gaudy costumes and don't even last the three minutes that sub-zero does . and who honestly cares about the woman that shows up calling herself jade ( irina pantaeva ) ? this is worse than the " street fighter " movie's overflow of characters . what were they thinking ? considering the advancements in effects since the original kombat , it's also distressing that the effects in this sequel are rather shoddy . in fact , we had some movies that had better cgi effects back in 1992 , such as terminator 2 and alien 3 . oh well . some things in this movie seemed to be tossed in just because they allowed the chance for cheesy effects . c'mon , did we really need that lame " animality " sub-plot ? at least the soundtrack succeeds in doing what the original's did : it makes hard rock and techno sound good and fun by setting it to martial arts battles , and making those genres of music sound good is not a horribly easy feat . but still , the original's is better . overall , this is just another bad sequel . it's about on the level of this year's batman & robin , and that's really a shame . the whole plot is a jumble - it's tough to care much about what's going on . the first one was fun , but this is just a big mess . it looks like 1995's mortal kombat remains the only truly * good * video game-based film so far . the mistakes here are so obvious . this should've been better . 
