For reasons unknown, I recently watched the movie Mortal Kombat II: Annihilation. I had heard the movie was less than stellar ["god-awful crap" was the term most often used.] Needless to say I went in expecting the worst. The question I was left with after watching the movie was: if this movie is so bad why don't I hate it more?

First a quick summary of the embarrassment that was Mortal Kombat 2. The film is a sequel to a movie that was based on a faddishly popular video game. The plot involves this Chris Zorich look-alike who is trying -along with his hordes of plastic ninja and dudes in outfits left over from Red Sonja- to merge earth with another world that seems to consist of nothing but fakey looking dungeon sets. The only thing protecting the earth is a group of bickering, cart-wheeling humans who are guided by a Japanese thunder god who, for some reason, looks like a gay white guy. The incomprehensible story is wrapped around bad directing, poorly done dance numbers/fight scenes, characters who flick on and off the screen with no explanation for who they were or what they had to do with the story, and an ending that features people turning into puppets.

Needless to say, this is not a movie I recommend. The whole film felt like it was being directed at a target audience that the filmakers had never met and knew nothing about. Either that or they were just incompetent. Having established how bad the movie was I'm still left with my original question: Why didn't I hate it more?

Perhaps it's a case of diminished expectations. I knew the film was going to suck going in so I was prepared for the worst. A different set of criteria is applied to a movie that's being seen on video as opposed to screening it in a theater. If I had watched the movie Blade in the theaters I would of been howling for my money back but because I watched it on video I almost enjoyed watching a wooden Wesley Snipes wander down a crowded street with a machine gun tucked under his arm while pedestrians pass obliviously by. The fact that someone else paid for the Mortal Kombat video rental didn't hurt either.

Perhaps it's masochism. Did I honestly expect to be entertained by something based off of a videogame that proposes the idea that the fate of the universe is decided by having two oily muscleheads punch each other? It's the same sort of feeling that you get when you pass by a car accident; you want to avert your eyes but something compels you to look.

Perhaps it's the clinical thrill that comes from finding pieces of the movie that could of worked but didn't. At one point two female characters, for no real reason, begin wrestling in a large mud-filled quarry. After that fetish friendly fight this large, poorly done demon pops out of the ground. Luckily a man wearing huge robotic arms was on hand and began to furiously punch the demon in the shins. After a few seconds of pummelling, the demon rolled over dead. If the movie had consisted of more scenes of female mud wrestling and a guy with big robot arms punching things it would of been a much more entertaining movie.

Or perhaps it's because I had been drinking before and during the movie so I ended up being so mellow that I didn't care what the hell I watched.

Bottom Line: While trying to understand varying degrees of dislike for a film is an interesting mental exercise, it proves the movie was pretty bad if you would prefer to do that rather than think about the movie. As an extension I shouldn't try to write up a review for a movie that was such a non-event that I couldn't even keep on topic when discussing it.

If you want to discuss anything other than Mortal Kombat, drop me a line at gleep9@hotmail.com. Otherwise thud on back to either the Second Movie section, or the main page.

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