Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is an infamously bad sequel, but it could've been a little better if producers had finished it. Warner Bros.' highly anticipated reboot of the Mortal Kombat movie franchise arrives in April 2021, and the trailers and marketing so far have gotten fans pumped. Director Simon McQuoid's reboot is looking set to give fans exactly what they want from a Mortal Kombat movie.
The new Mortal Kombat will be rated R, and those involved have made no secret of the fact it'll earn that rating, including recreating some of the trademark fatalities from the video games. Still, no matter how good it ends up being, there will likely be a contingent who argues it doesn't live up to the 1995 original movie. While hampered by a PG-13 rating in the blood and gore department, Mortal Kombat 1995 still succeeded in capturing the tone and style of the games, and its character choices even went on to influence future games.
Then there's 1997's Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, a movie absolutely no one is likely to hold up as the best of the three. A critical disaster, Annihilation was so bad it killed the franchise on the big screen for over 20 years, and also made much less at the box office. While there are many reasons for its failings, one big culprit is that the sequel wasn't even allowed to properly finish post-production.
New Line Released An Unfinished Workprint Of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation famously sports some absolutely awful CGI effects work, including the end fight between Liu Kang and Shao Kahn's animality forms. It's laughably bad stuff, and the fact those effects made it into a decently budgeted Hollywood studio release is mind-boggling. At least until one finds out that studio New Line Cinema seemingly didn't remotely care how bad the effects were. According to comments made by producer Lawrence Kasanoff (via Flickering Myth), the version of Annihilation that was released literally wasn't a completed project.
"Honestly, the final movie that's out there is not the final movie. There was supposed to be an entire second pass of visual effects, post-production, editing. But New Line said 'You know what? It's testing so well, it doesn't f***ing matter. It still gonna be a hit. And by the way, it was."
Screamcast podcast host Brad Henderson provided some additional context to Kasanoff's comments on Twitter, having previously spoken to director John R. Leonetti and other members of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation's crew. According to Henderson, the released cut was an unfinished workprint. The effects weren't final, and neither was the edit. What happened was that test screenings were held, and the audiences responded positively to the film as shown. New Line executives then made the unusual decision to just release the cut they had as is, instead of spending more money and manpower on finishing work as planned.
This isn't the first time test audience reactions have led to a movie being negatively affected, although in this case, one wonders where they found these viewers since almost no one seemed to like Mortal Kombat: Annihilation after it actually came out. Outside of the bad CGI, it's possible the edit not being final helped contribute to just how rushed and hard to follow the story is in the final film, with scenes jumping between each other with little logical flow, and characters moving in and out of the narrative without any real setup or payoff.