Mortal Kombat - Double Film Review

For Tanya Tuesdays this week you get two film reviews not just the one. Aren’t you lucky, lucky people. Instead of just reviewing the first Mortal Kombat film and then the second in another week I’m reviewing them together so both reviews will be relatively short so that this whole review doesn’t waffle on. Anyway on with the first film.

I actually fell asleep during this film, along for a couple of minutes because I was rudely awoken so that I wouldn’t miss anything. Surprisingly this film is miles better than the Super Mario Bros movie and Double Dragon. I’m not saying this is a good film, no not by a long shot. But its a vast improvement. The first thing I want to comment on is the music. The music is this film is actually fantastic, it’s the best thing about the film. I got really excited when the music shone through in certain parts of the film, especially during the fight scenes. You cannot deny how good the music is.

Anyway I was surprised when I watched this too see Christopher Lambert (Connor MacLeod from Highlander) in the cast. I just think he’s an exceptional actor in Highlander so that amused me for a while. The acting for some of the other actors (if you can call them such) within the film is so terrible. It really is! I just didn’t feel anything towards the characters. The fight scenes were well choreographed however anytime you saw the actors outside the confines of battle they just lacked personality.

I suppose I should mention the plot a little within this review. The story essentially is that for each generation a selection of warriors from the Earthworld must battle some warriors from the Outworld. So far The Outworld have won nine battles in a row meaning if they win this battle they can invade the Earthworld (by the way that is Earth if you had not yet realised). So the fighters within this film are Earth’s last hope.

The film had quite a good narrative for setting up the battles, it reminded me slightly of Dead or Alive. All the characters taken to an Island to battle each other. It’s so easy to set a film up that way and it works. Yet the plot appears to fail in other aspects.

So overall this film is good if your going to have to watch these films adapted from video games however, I would not recommend this as a general watch. It’s still a poor film, there is not much good to say really about this film besides the music and music cannot alone make a film.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation Film Review

So onto the sequel, I have to be honest I ended up playing professor Layton through this film. I could not focus my attention to watching it. Sequels are traditionally not as good as the original, there are always exceptions to the case and this is not one of them. This is a terrible sequel miles worse than the original film. This film makes me appreciate the first. If you were comparing the two films on a scale this would get a 2 and the original somewhere around an 8. The difference between the films is staggering. The first film set up the opening to the sequel so we already have established where the film is going to go. Forces from the Outworld, lead by Shao Kahn, attempt to invade the Earthworld and thus the warriors from the previous film must battle the new enemies.

This film pretty much changes the entire cast which really annoyed me. I hate watching movies where a character gets played by a new actor everytime there is a new sequel. The cast within this film was just as bad as the last, no surprises there.

The story was terrible, just its hard to believe they followed up Mortal Kombat with this. Who actually thought this was a good idea. It has me totally baffled. Again there is some good music, but it doesn’t make up for how appallingly bad this film is. I’m glad I played Professor Layton through this film because I don’t think I’d be happy knowing I’d wasted over an hour on this rubbish. It seems like everything that was mediocre in the first film rather than improve it they just decided to make it worse. This film is why everyone hates sequels. Someone please bring me a good sequel, films like this make me lose hope!