Mortal Kombat

There are some films that you go back to years later and wonder what the hell you ever saw in them. Then there is Mortal Kombat. Watching the two original Mortal Kombat movies again in 2026 was a proper nostalgia trip, and it also reminded me that there is a very, very big difference between Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. The 1995 film still works. Is it a masterpiece? Absolutely not. The acting can be questionable, the accents are all over the place and Christopher Lambert's laugh is something that will probably stay with me until the end of my days. But there is something about this film that just gets Mortal Kombat. It feels like you're playing the game. The characters are introduced quickly, everyone gets their own little moment, the story is simple enough to follow and then it just moves from one fight to another. It is basically a live action Mortal Kombat tournament, and honestly, that is all it needed to be, and the soundtrack is ridiculous in the best possible way. Techno Syndrome is still one of the greatest pieces of music ever attached to a film. You hear that Mortal Kombat theme kick in and suddenly you're 12 years old again, waiting for someone to shout "MOOORTAL KOOOMBAT." The cast is amazing. Robin Shou makes for a likeable Liu Kang, Johnny Cage is exactly the sort of ridiculous character you want him to be, and Kano is brilliant. The look of Kano in this film is so good that it almost feels like the movie created the version of the character that everyone now thinks of when they hear his name. Then there is Shang Tsung. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa IS Shang Tsung. You could recast every other character in the movie and I probably wouldn't care but replacing him would feel wrong. The way he delivers "Your soul is mine" is still one of those bits that has stuck in my head for years. The fights are where the film really shines. The Johnny Cage and Scorpion fight is probably the obvious standout, but I actually have more nostalgia for Johnny Cage fighting Goro. Watching Cage pull off moves that actually resemble the game was exactly the sort of thing that made this film exciting when I was younger. The Reptile fight is another highlight, and the whole thing has that crazy over the top 90s action movie style where everyone is constantly flipping through the air instead of just walking down a set of stairs. Even Goro, despite looking a little strange in places is impressive for the time. He's an actual physical creature rather than just some terrible CGI creation, although his movement does look pretty unsettling when you really stop and watch him. This movie doesn’t try to break the mould or be something its not. It stays true to what the video games introduced. It isn't trying to make Mortal Kombat into some incredibly complicated fantasy epic. It's a bunch of characters going to an island, beating the hell out of each other and shouting things that you remember from the games. Then came Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. The first time I watched Annihilation as a kid I loved it. It had loads of characters from the games, ridiculous fights and enough fan service to make any Mortal Kombat fan happy. Going back to it now is a completely different experience. The film is ridiculously bad, but so bad you cant look away and it becomes comedic. watching it again was also one of the most entertaining things I've done in a while. The biggest problem is that Annihilation seems to have taken everything that worked about the first film and decided that the solution was simply add more of everything, it’s the first movie but on steroids. More characters, more powers, more CGI, more backflips, more explosions, more everything. Maybe not more plot though. The film throws characters at you constantly without properly explaining why they're there. Cyborgs suddenly turn up, characters appear and disappear, people have powers they didn't seem to have before and the story becomes increasingly difficult to follow. The cyborgs themselves actually look pretty good, but the film barely bothers explaining them or giving them any meaningful place in the story. It also has the bizarre decision to kill Johnny Cage almost immediately and none of the other characters seem particularly bothered. Raiden can come back to life, but Johnny is apparently just expected to stay dead. Nobody even thinks to ask if they can bring him back as well. The CGI is another problem. There is so much of it, and so much of it looks rough. The film apparently had a bigger budget than the first movie, which makes it even more mental that so much of it looks like someone discovered a computer for the first time and decided every scene needed an effect. Yet somehow, I still had a brilliant time watching it because buried underneath the terrible effects, ridiculous story and questionable acting is that same thing that made Mortal Kombat so much fun in the first place. A ridiculous amount of fan service You see the characters, you see the moves. You get Cyrax, Smoke, Rain, Shao Kahn, even nightwolf. You get animalities, but that wasn’t a highlight. Most of the movie youure sat going “oh my god they put that in!” Even the final fight throws loads of game moves at you, with the Mortal Kombat theme blasting away in the background. That is why I don't think I can completely hate Annihilation. As a film it's awful. As a piece of 90s Mortal Kombat nonsense that you can sit down with your mates and laugh at while pointing out every ridiculous thing happening on screen, it's fantastic. The first film has a simple story, memorable characters, brilliant fights and one of the greatest movie themes of the decade. Annihilation has absolutely no idea when to stop, but it still has a place in my heart