The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Basic Premise:

The O'Connells are at it again. This time the mummy is the Chinese emperor who united all of China in the BCE days with military might and legendary brutality. He's risen once more -- thanks to the O'Connells -- and now has to be stopped -- by the O'Connells with a little help.


Review:

First, I'd like to note that there is nothing at the end of the credits. Second, the only recurring characters from the first two Mummy movies are Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connell and John Hannah as Jonathan Carnahan. Third, I'd guesstimate it's about ten years later since Alex is college-aged and following in his mother's grave-robbing... I mean archaelogical footsteps.

This movie was a reunion film for Jet Li and Russell Wong -- they did Romeo Must Die together. Add in Michelle Yeoh and you should have a great action movie with spectacular fight scenes.

*snort*

There were very few hand-to-hand fight scenes and the few that were there were short (they were pretty, but there were short). Jet Li is known for his skills and he didn't get to showcase them much in this film. It's a good thing he didForbidden Kingdom, I guess.

I'd like to note that I will be buying this movie when it comes out on DVD just because it's a Mummy move, and I love Jet Li and Brendan Fraser (in that order). I, however, wish I had waited until my weekend (I work weekends and have off during the week), because this movie wasn't worth the sleep I lost and the fatigue during work that I endured going to see it.

I wish Stephen Sommers had directed it (he did the first two). Rob Cohen has directed a few movies I loved -- Dragonheart,Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Daylight -- but he didn't do the Mummy legacy any favors. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was highly predictable and campy as hell.

If they'd gotten Rachel Weisz back to play Evelyn Carnahan O'Connell, it might have saved it a little. Rachel and Brendan had a chemistry that just wasn't there for him and Maria Bello (the replacement). The romance felt and looked forced. Matter of fact, the chemistry of the whole cast felt a bit off but that might just be a bias on my part since I wasn't fond of Maria Bello or her disappearing accent.

All in all, the effects were cool and there was lots of gunfire -- just like the first two. My favorite part was the opening (where they tell you how Jet Li became a mummy) and the yetis, especially the yetis. They were too cute.

Imhotep vs. Dragon Emperor (a mummy vs mummy free-for-all):
Imhotep would have bit it. The man had plagues and telekinesis but the Dragon Emperor controlled the five major elements (Chinese philosophy believes in five instead of four -- earth, water, fire, wood, and metal) and could shapeshift. Not to mention, Imhotep was dependent on spells. The Dragon Emperor would have kicked his butt five ways to Sunday before Imhotep even uttered a syllabl.

D. Renee Bagby<br />
Building New Realms of Passion<br />
http://dreneebagby.com

If you want: Mummies! Yetis! Perambulating Skeletons! Brendan Fraser (Back from the Dead)! …this is your movie. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor has a colon in the title, and that colon says “of dubious quality” as sure as if the movie carried a Made in Myanmar stamp. The movie belongs to a long line of gormless CGI twaddle that dates back far beyond the first Mummy, and either you accept its bad dialogue, ludicrous plot twists and comedy yaks or you go and watch something Michael Haneke-y and pretend comedy yaks don’t amuse you. For my part, I’m with any movie where John Hannah screams “Die you mummy bastard!” But maybe that’s just me.

After a brief prologue where Michelle Yeoh tells of a legend that explains who the bad guy is going to be this time around, we catch up with Brendan Fraser fly-fishing. It is After the War (WWII) and Fraser and his trusty wife Maria Bello have retired from mummy-fighting, bequeathing the family business to their son, Luke Ford. Ford – it transpires – is about to get mom and pop back into action, as he’s just discovered a Chinese mummy (played by Jet Li). And before you can say: “Didn’t Jet Li retire to become a monk?” the Chinese mummy has Risen from the Grave (!!) and is hell-bent on breathing life into the third instalment of the Mummy franchise.

I could’ve sworn Jet Li did retire with the intention of becoming a monk. But here he is, smirking inscrutably, as ever. Something about that smirk says we’ll probably never know whether he did retire, or what the hell that monk business was about, but Li has never been one to communicate much on-screen. Ever since he took Mel Gibson’s gun apart in Lethal Weapon 4, he’s been kicking asses and keeping mum. All his lines in The Mummy are in Mandarin, and I’m not going to pretend (like most critics) that I’d know good delivery from bad in a language that’s not my own. Probably he’s as rubbish here as he is in most of his movies, but – my God – he’s still got the moves.

Brendan Fraser seems to have spent his forced retirement fine-tuning his Cary-Grant-if-Cary-Grant-was-Jughead-from-the-Archie-comics schtick, and he’s just as knowing, wink-wink, I’m-in-this-but-I-get-it as he always was. You never believe Brendan Fraser as any character he plays, just as you never believe he was first pick for any role either. Fraser is an actor you root for because he’s likeable (in spite of it all) and because he was born to be the star of a movie that plays like a B-list Indiana Jones.

Maria Bello seems to be stepping into something difficult what with her replacing Rachel Weisz, but playing Evelyn O’Connell isn’t exactly like replacing Princess Leia, and Bello’s such a good sport you’d have to be related to Weisz to oppose the move. Bello – mercifully – hasn’t been grabbed by Hollywood’s forehead police yet, so she’s 40 and Botox-free for The Mummy. Unlike certain actresses (cough, cough… Nicole Kidman), Bello has realised that being able to make facial expressions is a Good Thing, and that lines on a woman’s face are not the same as scar tissue. She was a welcome riposte to the Barbie cult in The Cooler, and she remains unbowed here.

Almost everything in the third Mummy movie has been done before. It’s the kind of movie where you know a stolen truck is going to contain fireworks (a) because the movie is set in China, and b) because it’s all about bright lights and constant explosions). Familiarity isn’t something director Rob Cohen fears – after a career spent making movies no-one especially wanted to see (Dragonheart, The Skulls, XXX, Stealth). Either you’re in a mood where all this makes you tear your hair out, or you’re about ready for Brendan Fraser, for bullets, for True Love to Conquer All (including immortality). No-one says its art, but then, you should know that from the colon.

BOTTOM LINE: On it's own, this film is a major disappointment. When compared to the previous Mummy films, it's even more disappointing. None of the fun, adventure or thrills are present in this botched, insipid outing which does not come anywhere close to the standard set by the previous entries in this franchise.

THE GOOD: Being the third entry in the Mummy series, it was time to change direction away from Ancient Egypt and the filmmakers chose to exploit ancient Chinese history by basing this Mummy on an ancient Chinese Emperor (a perfectly cast Jet Li) who ruled millions in Ancient China but was put under a curse by immortal queen Zi Juan (again, a perfectly cast Michelle Yeoh) for killing her lover General Ming who was the Emperor's right-hand man. Imprisoned in stone, a warning was placed throughout history never to lift the curse otherwise the Emperor will rise and enslave the human race. Basically it's the same plot as the previous films just with different scenery and actors which is fine; you do not expect more than that from a film like this. Brendan Fraser is back as Rick O'Connell, and together with Evie (a re-cast Maria Bello) they go to China on a mission but subsequently discover that their son Alex (Luke Ford) has dug up the Emperor and put him on display in the Museum. Before you can blink, a group of Chinese soldiers awaken the Emperor and all hell breaks loose. The rendering of Jet Li as the Mummy this time around is different, but well done. He's clay based, as with his Terracotta army, and has control over the five elements which means he can do cool things like breath fire and make sharp icicles to impale his enemies. Michelle Yeoh is great as the character of Zi Juan, providing much of the explanation as to what the Emperor is up to and what they need to do to defeat him. An unexpected surprise was the use of the Yeti, or in this case, three of them, who come to the aid of our heroes on request. The film has a couple of interesting things in it, but...

THE BAD: This film is an excellent example of studio/committee based crap designed to punch out the formula in the hope of generating the expected amount of revenue. I have no doubt that Mummy 3 will pull in its hundreds of millions, but the sheer lack of quality, direction and fun in this installment will turn the audience away from this franchise when it didn't need to be. The reason both The Mummy and The Mummy Returns worked was because of an inspired sense of direction and staging by director Stephen Sommers (who isn't a master by any means, but he is a solid director). Rob Cohen on the other hand does not seem to have any touch on the material; the film is lifeless, poorly shot and insipid. The actors look like their going through the motions. I felt sorry for Brendan Fraser; the poor guy not only had to repeat his old performance but he had to play it against Maria Bello, who is a good actress, but she cannot replicate the character of Evie as Rachel Weisz did leaving Fraser looking like he's lost most of the time. Alex's character isn't that great; I actually hoped he would turn in to Mummy fodder at some point. The epic first on screen battle between Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh is massively underwhelming; not only is it not that long, but it's not well done. The rising of General Ming's undead army works initially, but ultimately pushes the film in to an over reliance on CG, which is a fault of all the Mummy movies, but somehow because the rest of the film doesn't work then this doesn't either. Overall, I walked out of this film disappointed that I had wasted my money on it and hoped that the franchise can rest before it gets worse than this lame-duck effort.

RATING: 3/10

Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net