mortal kombat: annihilation

New Escapist Video! On “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” as the First Fan Service Blockbuster…

Posted on April 27, 2021 by Darren

So, as I have mentioned before, I am launching a new video series as a companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch with every second Monday article, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel the following week. This is kinda cool, because we’re helping relaunch the magazine’s film channel – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.

This week, following the release of Mortal Kombat, we thought we’d give audiences what they really wanted. Yes, that’s right: a deep dive on Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: blockbuster, continuity, fan service, fans, history, in the frame, intellectual property, Lore, mortal kombat, mortal kombat: annihilation | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” as the First Fan Service Blockbuster…

Posted on April 26, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Mortal Kombat over the weekend, it seemed like as good a time as any to take a look back at the earlier nineties iteration of the cinematic franchise.

In particular, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is a much more interesting movie than is often acknowledged. It is a complete disaster in just about every sense, but is a revealing one. Watched from remove of two decades, Annihilation often feels like a template for the sort of fan service blockbuster that we now take for granted, with its broad themes of “family” and its plot that serves primarily as an object on which continuity references and nostalgic shoutouts might be ornately arranged.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: annihilation, blockbusters, fan service, film, in the frame, mortal kombat, mortal kombat: annihilation, Movie, the escapist, x-men 3 | Leave a comment »

232. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (-#78)

Posted on April 24, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Richard Drumm and Niall Glynn, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, John R. Leonetti’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

Liu Kang, Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage have just won the Mortal Kombat tournament, saving Earthrealm from Outworld. However, the villainous Shao Kahn does not accept victory so easily. Breaking the rules of the tournament, Kahn and his army of monsters launch a full-scale invasion of Earth. Can our heroes stop “the merger” in time?

At time of recording, it was ranked 78th on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.