MK 1 and 2

MORTAL KOMBAT AND MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION
SPECIAL DOUBLE REVIEW

About six months after street fighter we got another movie based on a fighting game Mortal Kombat and 2 years 2 months and 3 days later we got its sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Because this is a double review I’m going to first do the plot of each then the review of each then the scores so let’s get right to it.

The plot of mortal kombat is fairly simple and actually follows the game very closely. Every generation (50 years) a tournament is held if a fighter from out world wins the tournament 10 times then out world can take over earth realm. Rayden the god of thunder is responsible for finding the best warriors to defend earth realm. The ones he chooses are Liu Kang, Johnny cage, and Sonya blade.

The tournament is run by Shang Tsung. To give it a quick sum up the fighters fight teach other and our three heroes defeat their challengers. Sonya fights Kano, Liu Kang fights sub-zero and Johnny cage fights scorpion. After they win their first rounds a 4 armed monster named Goro starts fighting and killing everyone in the tournament. Eventually Johnny cage challenges him Shang Tsung allows this but only on the condition that he is able to challenge anyone at any place.

Johnny agrees and is able to defeat Gorro by nut punching him over a cliff. Shang Tsung then invokes the previous stated stipulation and kidnaps Sonya and takes her to out world. Liu Kang and Johnny Cage follow her to out world there they meet Kitana who tells them the truth about what will happen if they don’t be Shang Tsung. On their way to Shang Tsung's temple they run into reptile a lizard like creature that takes the form of a ninja. Liu Kang defeats him and they move on.

Once at Shang Tsung's temple Liu challenges him to mortal kombat and they fight Liu eventually beats Shang Tsung punching him onto a pit of spikes and saving earth realm. Johnny, Sonya, Liu, Rayden, and Kitana all head back to the shoalin temple to celebrate they are all smiles and cheers until the sky darkens and the emperor of out world attacks them this is where the movie ends and where the second one begins.

As soon as annihilation starts we see shao Kahn enter earth realm and explains that because he has resurrected Sindell who is Kitana's mother the two realms will merge. Johnny cage is pissed and uses his shadow kick to attack Kahn but is killed. Rayden attacks Kahn but is defeated so Rayden helps Sonya, Kitana and Liu escape into a secret underground passage way where he explains that Kahn must be defeated or the realms will merge and that would be bad. Rayden and Sonya head in one direction and Kitana and Liu go another.

Kitana and Liu are attacked by scorpion and saved by sub zero who turns out to be the sub zero from the first movies brother. In the middle of the confusion scorpion kidnaps Kitana and heads to out world. Sub zero lets Liu know that he is not strong enough to fight Kahn yet and must seek out Nightwolf. In the mean time Sonya finds her old partner Jax who has had metal arms graphed to him. They are then attacked by Cyrax and they defeat him.

Liu Kang is by now undergoing Nightwolf's tests which include a fight with jade. Sonya after leaving the base with Jax and blowing up Cyrax are attacked by Mileena Sonya fights Mileena while Jax fights a monster. After that Rayden comes back from talking to the elder gods and is now a human. Eventually everyone meets up after Liu saves Kitana and defeats Baraka’s and heads for out world everyone starts fighting everyone and Rayden looses o Kahn then Liu challenges Kahn and the elder gods make it mortal kombat so that Liu has a chance of winning. Eventually Liu beats Kahn and the realms are restored back to normal.

Ok so now for the reviews starting with mortal kombat. Personally I like both of these movies for different reasons the first MK did ok in the box office and had mix reviews almost everyone agrees that part 2 sucked. The first one had a good amount of characters in it Liu Kang Sonya a cameo by pre op Jax Johnny cage Rayden, Shang Tsung, Gorro and Kano. The second one had at least twice as many.
In the first one there were lots of signature special moves. Liu Kang did his bicicle kick Johnny did his shadow kick and nut punch. Scorpion did his harpoon throw and fire breath fatality sub zero froze some stuff and Shang Tsung transformed.

Compared to street fighter there was a hell of a lot more moves in this movie the only disappointing one was Liu Kang's fireball when he knocks Shang Tsung into the pit like Ryu's Hadouken it was only a flash of light. As for the game story both movies follow the story pretty closely with the added plot that Shang Tsung killed Liu's brother and they never mention Kung Lao as far as I remember but those are minor compared to the grand scope of things.

One of the main complaints fans had about the movie was the lack of blood when the game has so much. Personally I think the director only played the super Nintendo version and didn’t know the blood code but that’s just me. But in all honesty the gore made the games great but was never realistic and just wouldn’t work in the movies. The only way I could really see the blood working is if instead of mass amounts of blood they just had the characters bleed more like if one gets kicked in the face then he bleeds a little instead of no blood but that’s the only idea I have. The first movie also had the famous pit stage personally I would have had Liu uppercut Shang Tsung but the fireball worked too.

In the second movie which is cool because like the new bond flick it starts only a few minutes after the end of the first one there are a lot more signature moves a lot more characters and unfortunately a lot less plot. The fight scenes are great I find them entertaining and its very cool to see live action versions of all the special moves I mean Rayden even yells whatever he yells when he does the flying tackle move and thats funny.

But I think this movie should be an example for when fans of the game demand the movie be as much like he game as possible. The movie had special moves and great action but very little plot just like the game and because of this it wasn’t well received by the general public a few characters where only seen their names never mentioned which would confuse regular movie goers. So to sum it all up number one had a plot that very closely followed the game and was a good interpretation of the game with lots of references and content. The second movie was good solely for the amount of content and action but was sorely lacking plot and more than likely only enjoyed by fans of the games.

Ok so for the first MK over all it gets 7 out of 10 fatalities and the second MK get 5 out of 10

The acting for the first MK gets 6 out of ten with every character keeping with the personality of the games and delivering the lines written pretty good even the one liners. The second MK gets 5 out of ten some of the one liner's here where just silly and with so many characters crammed into one movie it was hard for you to get attached to any of them

The plot for both the first and second MK gets 8 out of 10. These movies stay truer to the source material then most movies out there.

And the content for both movies gets 9 out of 10 the only thing missing where a few more fatalities in my opinion

The side not for this review is form the movies came a live action TV series called mortal kombat conquest and followed Kung Lao after he won the tournament for the first time against Shang Tsung it’s got decent action and falls in the same category as Xena and Hercules if you ever get a chance check it out.

I hope you enjoyed this double review after reading it I think it could be a little better but I would really like to know what you think please give me some feedback so I can get better at these even if its negative. Any way up next is wing commander and is the first video game movie I’ve seen that I’ve never played the game too so it will be interesting