Mortal Kombat - Annihilation Review

Among the most popular locations on the Internet are the 300-plus sites devoted to Mortal Kombat, an arcade game and CD-ROM which made the inevitable transition to movie franchise a few years ago. Armed with a much larger budget than the first outing, Mortal Kombat - Annihilation picks up with the Earth at peace, thanks to super fighter Liu Kang who`s successfully seen off evil Outworld emperor Shoa Kahn and his minions. But not for long, because someone forgot to lock the gateway which allows the bad guys access to earth and once again Liu Kang and his co-ed fighting force are thrown into battle against the dark powers....First-time director John Leonetti is obviously a fan of the Hong Kong action fantasy genre. His attempts to emulate the spirit of those films at least provides some well executed action scenes to help distract from the virtual absence of plot. His cast, drawn mostly from the ranks of martial arts champions, ex-footballers and even America`s most popular TV "Gladiator", go through their physical manoeuvres convincingly but are much less assured with the rigours of dialogue. Still, it`s action, not plot that so patently counts. Fans of this type of material should find it satisfactory, others beware...