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 instalment 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.
For the original review, follow this link: http://www.allaboutmovies.net/filmreviewthemummytombofthedragonemperor.htm
Todd Murphy is a staff reviewer at the film/DVD review web site, All About Movies.net - for all the latest reviews on the newest releases. He also contributes reviews and articles for the Digicosm Film Blog: http://www.filmannex.com/Digicosm
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