Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)

Let me be clear about something straight away: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is one of the worst films ever made. Not in a quiet, forgettable way. In a loud, screaming, neon-drenched, logic-free way that actively assaults your senses for roughly an hour and forty minutes. It is a disaster of almost cosmic proportions. And I mean that with a strange, grudging kind of affection.

Because here's the thing. I genuinely enjoyed Mortal Kombat. The 1995 original had style. It had energy. The fight choreography was decent, the cheese was self-aware, and Paul W.S. Anderson kept the whole ridiculous thing moving with just enough confidence to paper over the cracks. It was a video game adaptation that understood the assignment: big, daft fun. It earned its cult status.

This sequel throws every single one of those qualities straight into the Outworld trash compactor.

What replaces them? Neon spandex. Dialogue so bad it sounds like it was generated by a machine that had only been trained on rejected Saturday morning cartoon scripts. Special effects that look like they were rendered on a screensaver running on a dial-up connection. And a plot that feels less like a story and more like someone tried to explain the first film from memory after three energy drinks and a long nap. Characters teleport between realms with zero explanation. Subplots appear and vanish. Shao Kahn delivers monologue after monologue with the menace of a pantomime villain who didn't quite make the cut. The romantic subplot between Liu Kang and Kitana is so stiff and awkward that you find yourself quietly hoping the apocalypse kicks in early just to spare everyone the embarrassment.

The pacing is frantic and somehow also boring, which is a genuinely impressive achievement. There are moments where the film is moving so fast that you can barely register what's happening, and yet you're also completely, thoroughly bored. It's a paradox. A feat of anti-cinema that deserves to be studied, if only as a cautionary tale.

The cast do their best, bless them, but there's only so much you can do when the script offers you nothing and the direction seems mainly interested in cutting to the next chaotic set piece before anyone notices how little sense the previous one made. Several cast members from the first film were replaced, and honestly, watching this, you can't blame anyone for backing quietly towards the exit.

And yet. And yet.

Here's where it gets complicated. Watched alone, this film is a slog. A genuinely painful experience. But watched with a group of friends, with drinks, with the freedom to yell at the screen and marvel collectively at the sheer scale of the catastrophe unfolding before you? It transforms. The commitment to absolute nonsense starts to feel almost admirable. The terrible CGI monsters become hilarious. The wooden acting becomes a sport. You start competing to spot the next baffling decision before it arrives. The film becomes, against all odds, a party.

Very few films earn the title of "so bad it's legendary." Most bad films are just bad, a dull grey disappointment you forget by the time you've put the kettle on. Annihilation is different. It has a personality. A catastrophically misguided, utterly bewildering personality, but a personality nonetheless. It knows not what it does, and that obliviousness is, somehow, its greatest strength.

One star. Flawless victory.

Rating: ★  | Year: 1997  | Watched: 2025-09-19

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