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Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is a 1997 American fantasy action film, the second live-action adaptation of the Mortal Kombat fighting game series and a direct sequel to the 1995 film Mortal Kombat. Directed by John R. Leonetti and produced by Lawrence Kasanoff for New Line Cinema, it follows the warriors of the first film as they defend Earth from the Outworld emperor Shao Kahn, who has broken the rules of the Mortal Kombat tournament and invaded directly.¹^•² Released on November 21, 1997, the film earned about $51.3 million worldwide against a $30 million budget and received some of the weakest critical ratings recorded for a wide theatrical release, with a 4% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metascore of 11.³^•¹^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Release	November 21, 1997 (wide, New Line Cinema); video release August 25, 1998³
Director / producer	John R. Leonetti; Lawrence Kasanoff¹
Rating and runtime	PG-13 for non-stop martial arts violence; 95 minutes³
Box office	$16,771,694 opening weekend in 2,140 theaters; $35,927,406 domestic; $51,327,406 worldwide, against a $30,000,000 production budget³
Critical scores	4% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (53 reviews); Metascore 11 from 12 critics; 24% audience score on the Popcornmeter¹^•⁴
Principal cast	Robin Shou (Liu Kang), Talisa Soto (Kitana), Sandra Hess (Sonya Blade), Lynn "Red" Williams (Jax), James Remar (Raiden), Brian Thompson (Shao Kahn)²
Franchise aftermath	No third live-action film followed; the series rebooted with Mortal Kombat in 2021⁵

Spoilers

Plot

Every generation, a portal opens between Outworld and Earth. Emperor Shao Kahn (Brian Thompson), ruler of Outworld, slips through the moment it reopens with his warriors, intending to conquer Earth and merge the two realms, and he has only seven days to complete the task. Opposing him, the warriors Sonya Blade (Sandra Hess), Jax (Lynn "Red" Williams), Kitana (Talisa Soto), and Liu Kang (Robin Shou) prepare for war.¹ The story continues directly from the ending of the 1995 film, which had closed on a cliffhanger involving Shao Kahn.⁶

Place in the franchise

The film's failure ended the 1990s film series: as one retrospective put it, it "flopped so hard it sent its characters back to their original, video-game realm until a 2021 live-action reboot."⁵ A planned third film, at one point announced as Mortal Kombat: Devastation, spent years in development without reaching production, and the film rights eventually moved to Warner Bros., which released the reboot Mortal Kombat on April 23, 2021.⁸^•⁹

Within the franchise's box office history, Annihilation remains the lowest-grossing live-action entry: the 1995 film and the 2021 reboot each opened to about $23 million, compared with Annihilation's $16 million debut, and later releases out-earned it in raw dollars.¹⁰ Adjusted for inflation, its domestic gross equals about $88.5 million.³ The film has since developed a following as a "so bad it's good" title, and both 1990s films were later released together in an Arrow Video 4K Blu-ray box set.¹^•¹¹

Production and release

The film was written by Brent V. Friedman, Bryce Zabel, Lawrence Kasanoff, Joshua Wexler, John Tobias, and Ed Boon, the last two being co-creators of the original game, and was shot with Matthew F. Leonetti as cinematographer.⁷ According to a retrospective account, the production was rushed, with truncated development and post-production schedules and additional material filmed to make the story more coherent.⁶ Producer Lawrence Kasanoff later said the film reached theaters unfinished, stating, "I'm telling you the effects in that movie are not the final effects."¹

New Line opened the film wide on November 21, 1997 in 2,140 theaters. It debuted at number one with $16,771,694, but business fell sharply afterward: the second weekend dropped about 60 percent, and the film left most theaters within weeks, averaging a 5.1-week run per theater.³ Domestic receipts of $35,927,406 made up 70 percent of its $51,327,406 worldwide total, about 1.7 times the production budget.³ A home video release followed on August 25, 1998.³

Critical reception

Reviews were overwhelmingly negative. On Metacritic the film holds a Metascore of 11, labeled "overwhelming dislike," based on 12 critic reviews, none positive; the user score is 3.7 from 209 ratings.⁴ Rotten Tomatoes lists a 4% Tomatometer from 53 reviews, with a critics consensus citing "shallow characters, low budget special effects, and mindless fight scenes" and "minimal plot development."¹ The Los Angeles Times review noted that the film was not screened for the media in advance.⁴

Recurring criticisms targeted the story and the effects. James Berardinelli of ReelViews wrote that the film "has no story, no characters, and no coherence," and Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly called it "fragmented and monotonous," lacking the gymnastic cleverness that made the first film watchable.⁴ Variety described the picture as largely choppily edited fight scenes combined with computer graphic effects.⁴ A later retrospective review in Gone With The Twins singled out the climax's computer-generated "animalities," the game series' finishing moves, as effects that should not have been translated to cinema.¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Franchise and series entries as standalone works › Action, thriller, and crime series film entries › Entries released in the 1990s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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