The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Review [2]

Posted by Joseph Lee on 08.04.2008

They're not even mummies! They're undead...stone...things. Yeah.



Starring:
Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connell
Jet Li as Emperor Han
Maria Bello as Evelyn O'Connell
John Hannah as Jonathan Carnahan
Michelle Yeoh as Zijuan
Luke Ford as Alex O'Connell

Story: Years after his last encounter with Imhotep, Rick O'Connell is living a life of luxury and is very bored. Lucky for him, his son manages to dig up the tomb of the Dragon Emperor and his army. Emperor Han wants to restore his power and conquer the world again, and only the O'Connell family can stop him.

Fun Trivia: The tomb of the Dragon Emperor with its Terracotta warriors is inspired by the real-life tomb of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. The mausoleum is located in Xi'an, China.

Let me start off this review by saying I was a big fan of The Mummy. While it's horror roots were gone for good, it was an action-packed, entertaining ride that introduced me to Brendan Fraser. I also enjoyed The Mummy Returns and even The Scorpion King, although I noticed the series was rapidly declining in quality. So when this new sequel was announced, I was cautious but optimistic. How bad could it be? They managed to get Fraser back, after all.

If there ever was a solid definition of coming back to a movie franchise to pick up a paycheck, it's the case with Brendan Fraser here. While normally he is a very likable actor and brings an everyman charm to his roles, in this film he becomes less of a character and more of a caricature. Fraser appears to be as tired of mummies as Rick O'Connell and it shows here as he looks bored the entire time. Maria Bello brings nothing to the re-casted role of Evelyn, almost as if she's playing a parody of the character herself. Luke Ford is just bad playing Alex and John Hannah continues his streak of bringing down an already middling film.

One of my favorite parts of the original Mummy was the special effects. The sand sequences, the scarabs, the battle at the end all were memorable. This movie heads more in the tradition of The Rock's appearance in The Mummy Returns by featuring some terrible CGI sequences involving Jet Li. Jet Li is actually barely in the film, it's mostly a CGI monstrosity acting like Jet Li for the majority of the picture. Jet Li's character of Han also has powers...and while they are clearly defined as elemental at the beginning of the movie, later on it seems he can shape-shift as well. It begins to add powers for him as it becomes convenient for the plot. All the while with bad special effects.

The only impressive effects were the Abominable Snowmen, which actually serve no purpose to the story and were probably put in the film to pad out the time. That's what a lot of the movie feels like: filler. There's lots of pointless talking sequences. At this point in the series the characters are well established, but it becomes apparent that the audience is forced to get to know them all over again. Since the characters aren't very likable in this go-around, it makes for a very dull experience.

The action sequences also feel tedious the majority of the time but there is a little fun to be had if you look hard enough. There are some good fight scenes, such as the finale with Fraser vs Li. However, all of this is lost in bad scripting, mediocre acting, and terrible special effects. I really wanted to like this movie. As I've mentioned, I like Fraser and I like the previous Mummy films. But a bad movie is a bad movie and this one didn't bring anything new to the table. You may hear people call this mindless entertainment. The mindless part is accurate, but it is not entertaining at all.

The 411: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is an unwelcome and unnecessary addition to an already played-out franchise. Brendan Fraser returns but offers nothing new. The special effects don't resemble the big budget action picture this is supposed to be, and are very lacking. Overall, it's a very dead franchise at this point.

Final Score:  3.5   [ Bad ]