First off, I will state that Robin Shou, Linden Ashby, and, if Shang Tsung is in the third movie, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa should all return. I like Christopher Lambert, but not as Raiden. His acting is fine(I guess), but Raiden needs to be able to fight. I don't see Lambert pulling off any believable martial arts scenes(this is in no way meant as a plug for Remar to come back ~shudder~ He didn't do his own fighting anyway. Ray Park did), and that brings me to Bridgette Wilson. Her fight scenes in the first movie were just plain awful and her acting was even worse. It was obvious she wasn't hired on for her fighting abilities or her ability to be choreographed in a good action scene. Sure, she's hot, but there are a million hot actresses. At least one(and I'm guessing more like dozens) could portray the character in a more effective manner.

It seems that a lot of people are so disgusted by the second movie(and rightfully so) that they are blinded as to what the first movie was really like.
I liked the first movie. I own it, and have watched it many times. However, I would never make the mistake of saying it was a good movie. Even for its genre, it was pretty bad. I enjoy it for the moments in which the movie achieves its goal of MKish chop socky greatness. I still get a little shiver when I hear Shao Kahn(or was it MK1 Shang Tsung?) say, "Reptile," and then watch the statue morph into Reptile. There were other great moments in the movie such as Scorpion vs Cage, the interaction between Johnny and Liu, and the Raiden/Tsung dialogues to name a few. Kang vs Tsung should have been great as well; however, it was ruined by the crap about facing the three challenges and Liu and Tsung's sometimes good and sometimes shit-poor dialogue. Kitana's in her role as "Obi-wan Kenobi with boobs," was extremely lame as well.

These are the types of things that should be avoided in the next movie. I understand that the mystical side of MK that needs to be represented, but I hope they put a little more thought and effort into it than, "In your next battle, use the element that brings life..."
"Water!"