Revealing mistake: During the opening scene, a few shots after we see the Outworld ninjas falling through the portal and leaping about, there's a shot of several monks fleeing that tilts up towards the (digitally replaced) sky. As it does this, you can see several hard lines about in the sky from where pieces of the digital animated skies were "stitched together." It's easy to miss the first time, but if you know to look for them, they're pretty obvious. You can see similar lines in the sky in several other shots throughout the scene, but it's most noticeable here.
Revealing mistake: When Liu Kang and Kitana fight Smoke and his goons, Kitana dodges one of the goons and then roundhouse kicks him. It's obvious in the wide shot that her kick did not connect.
Continuity mistake: When Sonya overhead throws Mileena into the ground, she throws her with one arm (she even ends up facing the camera). In the next shot, she's throwing her with both arms.
Answer: Mortal Kombat 2 was given a budget around the same as the first one probably indicating that New Line (makers of the film) were not convinced the film would not be as much an success as the original was. The buget of 30 million is not too high of a risk for a major film studio. The original was more built on the novelty of the video game and the interest of how it would translate to the screen so a sequel was always going to be tough. While it's hard to find out why the quality was unimpressive, this can just be more from different film crews from the first or just tougher f/x to try and create for the film in the time available. Take The Mummy Returns for example. The Scorpion King near the end looked far too computer generated. This was despite a massive budget and impressive CGI for both films.
Lummie ★