The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon EmperorReview by Nathan Weinbender
Movies like “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” should be seen (if they have to be seen at all) on Saturday afternoons when you have nothing better to do and the theater’s ticket prices are reduced. It’s as disposable and brainless as you might expect, but it’s not even all that fun, just a lot of hackneyed action sequences and empty special effects.
Brendan Fraser returns as Rick O’Connell, who, like a low-rent Indiana Jones, once traveled the world to plunder ancient temples and dueled with undead monsters of the ancient world. Now he lives retired in England, while his wife Evelyn (Maria Bello, filling in for Rachel Weisz), writes bestselling adventure yarns based on her exciting adventures from the previous “Mummy” films.
The O’Connells are lured to Shanghai when they discover their son (Luke Ford) has uncovered the long-lost tomb of, you guessed it, the Dragon Emperor (Jet Li). The Emperor is preserved with his massive army of terracotta soldiers, and—let me see if I have this right—they will all come to life and, I dunno, take over the world if a precious artifact called the Eye of Shangri-La falls into the wrong hands.
This movie could have been goofy fun, but it has a surprising amount of dull patches. The story goes nowhere interesting, the action sequences are photographed and edited so that they’re sometimes incomprehensible and none of the actors seem to be truly enjoying themselves. “Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” is a throwaway film, and it’s hardly worth writing anymore about it. Besides, it’s a Saturday afternoon, and I have better things to do.
Grade: C
Directed by Rob Cohen. Written by Alfred Gough and Miles Milar. Starring Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, John Hannah, Michelle Yeoh, Luke Ford and Isabella Leong. PG-13; 112m.
1 comment:
Brendan Fraser has given terrific performances in the past (he's great in "Gods and Monsters," and even in Paul Haggis' overrated "Crash"), and I think he generally reserves his cartoonish persona for movies like this. His manic performance in "Journey to the Center of the Earth," for instance, served the material well, but in "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" he seems to be aware of the script's mediocrity, and he telegraphs it to the audience.
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