The Weekly Planet - Mortal Kombat: Annihilation - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

What a big bunch of crap this is. Mortal Kombat Annihilation took everything that was good about the first one (not much) and made an infinitely worse version. Just an absolute pile of dreck. Some much of this doesn't work it's astounding. It's pretty good though. Just kidding it's an awful movie and if you like it you're an idiot. Thanks for listening!SUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNVideo Edition ► https://youtu.be/ivnLWjHLbGUHelp support the show and get early episodes ► https://bigsandwich.co/Patreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-movies The Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Caravan of Garbage. We did the first Mortal Kombat and people were like, do the second Mortal Kombat. We were going to do it anyway. We're doing it. But we pretended. Like we were like, let us know what you want us to do.

We had to fill a week. Yeah. I mean, we didn't want to watch this movie. No, it's bloodless. It's weak. It's sad. And yet. More expensive.

Was it really? Yes. Wow. We can talk about it. Was it really? Yes. Wow. We can talk about it. Well, I was going to say, James, it's a wonder what A Good Night's Sleep will do for you. Because I watched this, and although it's a very bad movie, I'm like, I love the new line cinema aesthetic. Crap. Yes.

I mean, before they did Lord of the Rings. They did Lord of the Rings. They did Dungeons and Dragons. Not the good stuff then. Not the, like, you know, it started, I guess, you know, Nightmare on Elm Street stuff. Yeah. You know, the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Everything's either set in the dark or in a desert. Sure, okay, yeah. Just weird keyed in lightning bolts all the time. You know what I mean? It all feels weirdly cramped no matter where it's set. Very true. The blue screen's bad. Yeah, it really is.

It's just people knocking around in very cheap costumes either having an absolute ball or the worst time of their lives absolutely i'm thinking of jeremy irons from dungeons and dragons when i when i think about that and just that middle of the road era where they're like we should we should dress the characters up like you know their their their their versions in the in the video game i'll leave a like i gotta put that in that's right we gotta we be authentic, but at the same time, like Queen Sindel, you know, the newly resurrected undead, you know, or wizardess queen from another dimension

is wearing just some, like, purple lycra. She got down at the gym, you know. That's right. And the hair's a bit tall. Yeah. Yeah, that's good stuff. God, I enjoyed this experience, although it was bad. This was atrocious.

Like, this wasn't even for me. It wasn't even, like, so bad. It's good stuff. God, I enjoyed this experience, although it was bad. Really? This was atrocious. Like, this wasn't even for me. It wasn't even, like, so bad, it's good. Well, for me, I'm not normally a so bad, it's good kind of guy, but this tipped over the line for me. Oh, my God. Just. I don't like this.

There's a moment where James Remar, replacing Christopher Lambert as Raiden in this, and he's had his newly shorn hair. Oh, my God. And it's just him and like a random ninja dude. Well, not him, but just a stuntman pretending to be him. They're just trading spin kicks in the air and not connecting, and I'm like, oh, that's the stuff. It really is, isn't it?

That is the stuff. This is the kind of movie that, and there's very few movies like this that fall into this category, but it makes me angry that this is considered a movie, which is kind of crazy. So, you know, Paul W.S. Anderson. Imagine it as a play, though. You'd be like, this is incredible.

It would be, wouldn't it? A pantomime. If I turned up to this, well, there was a Mortal Kombat live stage show. I can't imagine it was dissimilar. Reptiles behind you. That weird CGI gorilla skeleton dragon guy's behind you. And then you kicked him and he went back down into his hole. He went into a hole.

So Paul W.S. Anderson, who directed the first movie, he was offered to return, but he chose to make Event Horizon instead, which is an incredible horror movie. I thought you were going to say he chose to make an omelette instead. I can't come in. I'm making this omelette. So he actually expressed dislike for this film and regrets that he chose not to be involved

and it's one of the reasons he remained so hands-on with the Resident Evil series. He kept kind of dipping back into that franchise. Illegit fear that if he stopped making a Resident Evil movie for even a moment, they'd nab him. He'd be bundled into an unmarked van with no windows and they'd drive him to set and he'd be like, why am I at this weird, rotten stone temple?

Oh, they're making me make a Mortal Kombat movie. Speaking of stone temples. Yes, Stone Temple Pilots. Yes, that's right. So it picks up right after the last movie. There's been some changes. Some cast have been switched in it. Again, I'm loving that.

I love that they didn't have somebody go, oh, this magic is changing me. I'm loving that. I love that they didn't have somebody go, oh, this magic is changing me. I've been changed. They were just like, Sonia and Johnny Cage are there, but they're different actors now. They're different, yeah. Raiden's, who cares? Also, if I recall correctly, and I don't really,

because we recorded the first one, full disclosure, like quite a while back. Yeah, when the movie came out. That's right. Shao Kahn, like, I've come for your souls. He comes out of the whatever. And here he's just like a dude. He's just like a normal-sized guy.

There's a moment in this where we see him in his outworld headquarters, and there's no transitional moment where he's wearing the helmet and he takes it off. It's just him, just a bald man in a throne, and I'm like, who's this guy? That's the alien bounty hunter from the X-Files television series. That's exactly right. Where's your spring-loaded syringe-y thing? You dumbass. What I enjoyed about this, what I enjoyed

about this a lot is that obviously in the last one the villain was Shang Tsung, the sorcerer, and he's finally defeated. He's terrific by the way. I can't remember whether we said he was how terrific he was. I hope we did because he's just terrific, especially compared to this.

That's right. But what I liked is that at the end of that one, oh, no, he's been defeated, but his master, this ultimate powerful overlord, warlord man, just appears in the sky. But in this one, they immediately undermine it because his dad's there as well. His dad. He's just like, Dad, am I doing a good job, Dad? And that guy's also Raiden's dad. Yeah, that of their dads yeah so uh that's shinnok i guess

maybe it is i think it's supposed to be shinnok well then they nailed it didn't they who did i don't know a lot about mortal kombat but i'm 100 sure that looks fucking nothing like shinnok so which makes me very convinced it is shinnok. Yeah, you might be right. So anyway, story-wise, the world's emerging or something. And like you said, some of our favourites are back. They kept two of the actors. Yeah, Liu Kang's the same. Yep. And Mileena or Katana is the same.

Katana is the same, yes. Okay, terrific. Johnny Cage looks pretty similar, by the way. He gets killed almost instantly. I think he's more generically handsome in this. Yeah, that's fair enough. But yeah, he's not in it enough for that to take me out of the way. He gets killed almost instantly. I think he's more generically handsome in this. Yeah, that's fair enough. But yeah, he's not in it enough for that to take me out of the movie. It's also one of the movies where the acting is quite bad,

but none of that makes the movie worse. It's all part of it. I'm like, yeah, you're doing it. You're in this. I get it. You're here to cackle and chew some scenery. Yeah, and you're all doing it. I can't complain

so the budget on this this is wild to me because there's moments in it where like you mentioned it's just a keyed in lightning sky and everyone's got like a weird jagged line around them also why are you filming people like up towards the sky you're at the temple just film the temple do you know what i mean you don't need to have this the lightning sky in the background of every karate kick that you do. But there's moments like that. And then there's really impressive locations. And there's a moment where there's like a hundred person army like marching. Because this movie cost $30 million, which was $10 million more than the last one.

Which makes me think, who was allocating the funds of this budget? You know what I mean? Just wildly mismanaged. Well, at this point i think maybe mortal kombat 3 had come out so this was like it was hot stuff it's tight it ties into that maybe most of the money went to the licensing yeah you might be right yeah yeah it's entirely possible this story also and the and the weird resprayed hockey like armor that the robot ninjas wear oh yeah good stuff yeah yeah so they the team splits up all your favorites they split up and they have little boring adventures yeah and i would say this i think there's actually some very competent martial arts and stunt work

this one's better i think yeah weird right so there's a there's a quarry mud fight which by the way mud fight with the two women we see what you're doing we know what you up to. But there's some really, like, good falls and kicks in that moment. I'm not going to take it away from anybody involved in this. And I'll say this, a lot of the characters they included, some big swings here. And some of them they've sort of pulled off. Scorpion's back, except he's got two harpoons, but they come from the same hand.

James, didn't he get his head sliced in half in the first one? There's probably a second scorpion. Almost certainly a second scorpion. Or he gets out of hell. Yeah. You know what I mean? Whatever he's up to. I just think there should have been a line.

I super glued my skull back on. Now I'm fine, everyone. I gorilla glued my skull back together. So Jax is back, but it's different Jax, and he doesn't have prosthetic arms. He's just got rubber arms that he's stuck over his regular arms. Yeah, he's got arm sheaths. Also, he's clearly like he's undergone some horrific procedure that he's just waking up from, and then he just can kind of like just pull them off like they're a pair of sleeves.

Do you know what I mean? Oh, that wasn't the procedure. He had a prosthetic sample. Okay, well, then why is he lying on his back? He just wanted a little rest afterwards. Okay, fair enough. Takes it out of here. on his back? He just wanted a little rest afterwards. Okay, fair enough. Takes it out of here. That was originally actually supposed to be Michael Jai White.

Ah, from Spawn and Better Movies. Yeah, well he went on to make Spawn. And he also, he actually ends up playing Jax in something, which we will talk about towards the end. Yeah, that's right, yeah. So there's an attempt at Nightwolf, Mortaro and Shiva. What I love. So obviously in the previous one we had Goro.

Yep. An amazing technological feat at the time. Definitely. Still looked real janky. Yeah. But in this one we have the succeeding sort of outworld mutant warlord characters. We had Shiva who's like girl Goro with the forearms. And we had Motaro who's like a centaur guy.

Yeah. But just looked like a guy who would chew your ear off about real estate at a party. He's got that vibe, you know? Yeah, he definitely did. He's done a lot of cocaine. Yeah, I was going to say, yeah. To be fair, like, what they're doing with the Shiva with the Compton arms, not always terrible, but also clearly there wasn't enough budget allocated to it

because she meets her end by running into a room and then a cage, like, immediately falls on her. Yeah. We get various Barakas. I enjoyed very much the one that fights... Liu Kang? Is it? Who knows?

Yeah, the one that fights Liu Kang is just a guy in just the worst rubber Baraka mask, like a Halloween mask, and just like a baseball shirt. Yeah, he is, isn't he? Maybe it was Baraka mask night at the baseball and he got a free mask, you know? Here's something.

I could do this Photoshop. Baraka Obama. i did al goro once on my instagram so maybe i'll knock that up yeah one for every president yeah that's right uh if you've got any suggestions i'll do them all just leave them below yeah james remars raiden he gets a haircut he gives up his powers to turn up in a vest and be like i'm here now i'm I'm just one of you guys. Why did you do that? Why did you do that, Raiden? You could have used your lightning powers. You could have used all your lightning powers. I liked how right at the start of the movie,

all the heroes have to go on the run. And then Raiden's like, okay, all we have to do is reunite Sindel with Kitana and that will end all this. Yeah. Well, if you knew that, could have done it two seconds ago. Absolutely. Did you only think about it now, Raiden?

I only thought about it now, if I'm honest. Do you currently have the powers of a God of Thunder? I don't have any of that. I gave them up to wear this vest. It's weird how he has a complete kind of change of attitude when he comes back. He's like, the Elder Gods are important. There's a prophecy and whatever. The rules of Mortal Kombat have been broken. And he comes back and he's like, the Elder Gods are important. There's a prophecy and whatever.

The rules of Mortal Kombat have been broken. And he comes back and he's like, chill out, guys. I'm here. I'm just like you. Hang loose. Hang loose, man. I think at one point they're like, do you want to do some takes where you do? Because remember in the previous one, Christopher Lambert,

his Raiden is kind of like kind of a bit silly. He's got a bit of Lucy Goose-ness to him. I think they maybe were like, hey, James Riemel, try a few takes where you're a bit Lucy Goose-y as well, but maybe they didn't work out so well, so they just... Exactly. So it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Also, he later becomes Black Lightning's best friend in the TV series Black Lightning. Oh, there you go. Probably because he had form with lightning. That makes sense. Yeah. They checked his resume and they're like, do you have any experience with lightning?

And he's like, what if I ever? The sparks were bloody flying when i was in sex of the city i'll tell you that much mate i dated samantha in that series that's right uh so a big point of this movie is um if if you could call it that um animalities there was a moment in this movie uh where lu kang um has a there's an animality fight. And I just remember watching it and just feeling embarrassment. And I don't know whether it was like. When you saw it originally or do you mean recently? No, no, I'd never seen this. So watching this now. Was anyone in the room with you?

Well, that's the thing. I think it was like if my wife walked in, I'd have to be like, oh, no, this is like, this is my, you know, this is my job, right? She knows that. But like, I think she'd still be like. No, she would be like, up until this point I thought it was your job, but now I'm having my doubts.

I'm leaving. But those animalities, just everything in this just speaks to how bloodless and weak this movie is. Just an absolute bottom barrel piece of shit. And it culminates in a final battle where some of the mortal combat elders turn up and they're like you've broken all the rules of mortal combat i declare mortal combat it's like what i thought there were rules i thought they were being punished for trying to start a mortal combat so anybody could just get a mortal combat going the punishment is mortal combat

it's like a mexican way. You've been defeated in Mortal Kombat and now you've been sentenced to Mortal Kombat! Oh, man. Never should have agreed to Mortal Kombat. Now it's Mortal Kombat every day of the week. Sick of this, actually. I like it, the Adele. The consequences are Shao Kahn turns into an insect,

comes out of him, which is a thing in this. A few people have insects fly out of them. And Raiden's dad just kind of folds into a box. Yep, he sure does. I don't know what's going on there. Oh, yeah, and Raiden's killed, but then he's back, and they're like, do you want to be a weird spirit? We've got water, we've got fire.

I guess you can just be dirt. I don't know what the elements of the outworld, the netherworld, I don't know what they're supposed to be or what they control. And everyone went, hooray, Raiden's back. I mean, Johnny Cage is still dead. He's over there on the ground there. Well, speaking of, I want to talk about that.

But before we do that, do you mind if we do mortal trivia? I feel like I might tear that out because it's pretty embarrassing. I do mind. So I'm not going to do it. So what you did then has been wasted. how embarrassing for you and what a waste oh no my wife's walked in as well it's part of my job i swear no let's do it let's do mortal trivia okay uh so reality that's good thank you you always think of better things like i write down a thing and then you come in and just fucking off the cuff think of a better thing just It's embarrassing. You're editing all of this out, aren't you?

So Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon, he hated this film. I think he plays Scorpion in this or something maybe. So he hated it but he was in it. Interesting, okay. He probably gave him money. He's probably one of those guys who's got a clause in his contract

where any adaptation of his work he can just storm the set and just take over anyone's role he wants. Just push someone down. I'm Sonya now. Yeah, that's right. Kick. Look at my kicks.

Also, this is Ray Park's first film role. Oh, later to become Darth Maul. Yeah, that's right. And you probably saw him quite clearly because he's Raiden's stunt double. So you saw him. You probably figured that out because you see his face quite clearly in this movie. Also, if you add up all the back flips, front flips and side flips, together there are 54 of them all up.

I thought maybe Ben could put together a montage. Nice. Nobody's shaking his head. He doesn't want to do it. Could it be to a song from the movie 54? Like some sort of disco jam? We get stuck with the copyrights issue. Or maybe just a MIDI version of something.

No, Ben's shaking his head. He's not doing it. I can't. How about 54 flips to total silence? What do you think, Ben? At the time of recording, we don't know. We don't know. Do you want to hear about Mortal Kombat 3, though?

So this is Mortal Kombat 3 that never happened? That never happened, that's right. Or are you springing a third movie on me for next week? Oh, my God, I hope not. So Mortal Kombat Devastation, it was going to be called. It was delayed indefinitely. In Australia, they would have called it Mortal Kombat Devo. That's right.

I'm Devo, mate. So, yeah, the third movie was delayed indefinitely until it never came out. So cancelled. Yes, that's right. So Christopher Lambert was going to return along with Lyndon Ashby who played the original Johnny Cage. That's right. Johnny Cage was going to be resurrected to help the heroes against Kwan Chi

and a resurrected Shang Tsung. Oh. That's right. Production was halted when Hurricane Katrina destroyed most of the sets and the film ultimately never happened. I feel like that happens in a lot of movies, though, where they go, a set was destroyed, but we did it anyway. We pushed through.

It's never like, and then we never made it. I feel like it was diminishing returns at this point. But there were some follow-ups to this or some additional media which ended up happening. I know for a fact that Karihira Yukitagawa was one of the Shang Tsung additional character models in Mortal Kombat 11. Yes, that's right.

And we may have talked about that last week. I can't remember because we recorded that a million years ago. A million years ago. Well, either this is staying in or that's staying in. One of them's staying in, yeah. So, yeah, I don't know if you remember this because I don't know if it ever aired in Australia, but there was a prequel series of sorts.

It was also a prequel to the games called Mortal Kombat Conquest from 1998. Now, is this the web series? No, that's a different thing. So this was a one-season prequel series starring the original Kung Lao and people hate it. That's a shame. Yeah, it was probably bad, though. Then in 2011, after multiple attempts to revive this series,

there was Mortal Kombat Legacy, the web series, which started as kind of like a proof-of-concept kind of thing and then branched off into its own kind of series of vignettes. So the original concept video, I think, was meant to be more of a realistic take on Mortal Kombat. There wasn't a lot of magic. Yeah. Baraka was, I think an insane surgeon who grafted swords to his arms or something like

that. And it was, it was meant to be no, no magic, no guff, just, just real gritty stuff. But then I think the,

the, the series itself became a bit more magical. Yeah. Which, you know, yeah, yeah. They did the right thing. I think so too. And then of course there are magical. Yeah, which, you know, yeah. Yeah. They did the right thing.

I think so too. And then, of course, there are a few other attempts until, you know, they're leading up to the 2021 movie. Yeah, so there we go. There's some Mortal Kombat movies that we've talked about. Some people call these the pinnacle of video game movies. Well, the first one at least. I say, bad.

The second one makes the first one worse. It's a Highlander 2 situation. Christopher Lambert again, Mason. He's done it again. He's done it again somehow. I'm glad you had a good time with it, though. Me too. Otherwise I would have had a bad time.

And I'd be sad today. That's right, you would, yeah. But you know sometimes people want to see these early. They're like, oh my God, I would love to see this early. You can actually if you go to bigsandwich.co and you sign up. I just want to see James Ramar's stunt double do spin kicks. You mean Ray Park? Yeah.

Yeah, you can. I mean, elsewhere. Yeah. But, yeah, we also have bonus podcasts. We do movie commentaries. There's an ad-free feed of our show, The Weekly Planet. That's right. Which only comes out Monday, but it comes out Sunday then.

And speaking of, this upcoming episode, guess what we're talking about, Mason? Tax reform. No, no, I'll give you a clue. Yep. Think Mortal Kombat 2021, the movie. Think about that. Tax reform as it relates to the movie Mortal Kombat 2021. Correct, yes, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And where all the goddamn money went from this fucking movie. Where did it go, Mason? Because it certainly didn't go into the special effects in the sky. I reckon it went into Ed Boon's pockets. You're probably right. Hey, good on him. Yeah.

He made an enduring franchise. That's right. He's got half a character named after him. Also, here's a hint towards what we're doing next week. Here we go. Get ready for this. I don't know. Whoa.

Whoa. Whoa. Are you serious already? Whoa. Pretty good stuff. Yeah. Anyways, thanks for watching this. I'm at MrSundayMovies on Twitter.

I'm at WikipediaBrand on Twitter. Leave a suggestion for a thing we want to look at And I will look at it I'll get to it, alright? Nice I'll put it on my list, I'll get to it You'll do it Yeah

Give me something my wife would be embarrassed I would be embarrassed if my wife walks in Imagine something your wife would be embarrassed by You liking it Yes, yes, that's right Yeah, yeah, yeah Okay, goodbye Great to have you guys

We'll see you next week This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. I mean, if you want. It's up to you. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from

Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+.