The Mummy 3 – Cohen’s Cast and the Mummy-less

by fitz | Posted on

The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor PosterHi all…

First of all, let me say that I loved the first Mummy movie. And then came the second, and I didn’t love it at all. (CGI Scorpion Kings aside, it was a bad film with little redeeming value.) And now Rob Cohen has picked up for Stephen Sommers and I have to wonder… why?

[rating:2/4]

If your favorite scene of a movie involves a group of CGI Yeti kicking a field goal with a Chinese soldier for the ball… something’s wrong.

  • Problem #1 – Luke Ford as Alex O’Connell. How in the heck could Rick (Brendan Fraser, whom I like) and Evie O’Connell have a son in College? Huh?
  • Problem #2 – Maria Bello as Evelyn O’Connell. I like Bello, but nobody can really replace Rachel Weisz, and she was wise (bad pun) to leave the franchise.
  • Problem #3 – There were NO mummies in this film!!!
  • Problem #4 – There is NO problem 4.
  • Problem #5 – There were NO mummies

If you’re in the mood for a good mummy movie, watch the first in this series. Or read Anne Rice‘s Ramses the Damned. But skip this one unless you’re desperate, it’s on television, and it’s the only thing on.

Ok, really it’s not that bad. But it’s not very good either. I’d have cut about half of this movie out from the get-go.

The Mummy 3 Yeti

Things I liked:

  • The Yetis. Yes, they’re kind of cheesy, but they were one of my favorite parts of the film.
  • The Battle at the Great Wall of China at the end. It dragged a bit, but at least it included the undead and some interesting scenes. (I really liked the planes flying across and mowing down the statue army…)
  • And Shangri-la. Whomever did the set painting for that scene did a great job. I would’ve moved there, but probably not have put a casino there like Jonathan was thinking of doing…

Thinks I didn’t like? Wow…

  • Father and son comparing gun cabinets was really forced. I got what they were after, but damn if they didn’t beat you over the head with it.
  • Jet Li’s character isn’t a mummy… Why the heck does this movie have “The Mummy” in the title?
  • Too many explosions (for little effect), faces melting, and statues being broken. Why the high destructive count?
  • Little plot questions like… Why did the Emperor’s statue army have to go beyond the Great Wall to turn immortal? All the Emperor had to do was take a bath… Couldn’t he have just marched them all up there for bath day?

Anyway… I’m giving this movie 2/4. It was ok. It wasn’t great. It wasn’t horrible. But it was a waste of time about half the movie. Save your money and rent it if you’re that interested…

Scary part is they’re talking about another Mummy film already — one in Peru. Please don’t do it. (The scarier thought is that this movie made $45 million in its first weekend and so did The Dark Knight. Ugly mummies, Batman!)

Until next time see (another) movie!

–Fitz

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Comments

  2. @Angelika

    Jet Li wasn’t in this movie all that much really… He just stood around and looked menacing. I preferred Unleashed to this (much better movie).

    And Ramses the Damned is one of my favorite Anne Rice books. I always held out hope that she’d write a sequel, but she seems to have left the World of Darkness for now… Oh well. 🙂

    Thanks for the comment!

    fitzs last blog post..**Warning .. http:/ is a known spammer . delete this message

  3. The one star I plopped on this clunky bore-athon is due to the presence of the great Jet Li as the evil Dragon Emperor of the subtitle and the gorgeous Michelle Yeoh as Zi Yuan, a witch who’s been on the Emperor¹s ass for over 2000 years.

    Peter Travers
    Rolling Stone

    http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/22126971/review/22126827/the _mummy_tomb_of_the_dragon_emperor
    martial-arts superstar Jet Li triumphs as the mostly wordless evil Emperor Han of ancient China, a glowing magma spirit locked in a terra cotta shell.

    Jane Horwitz
    Washington Post

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/31/AR2008 073100734.html

    Still, Li makes a great villain, using his powers to create fire, ice and other elements.

    Edward Douglas
    Coming Soon
    http://www.comingsoon.net/news/weekendwarriornews.php?id=47377

    Toward the end of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh launch into a vigorous sword fight — and what a grand pleasure it is to watch these two world-class stars in action again…Their duel atop the Great Wall of China is a reunion of titans, an Old Timers’ Day for two actor-athletes still in their sinuous prime. Forgive the effusions of an alter-kocker fanboy, but the flinty glamour of Li and Yeoh — buttressed by the stolid, sneering presence of top Hong Kong villain Anthony Wong Chau-sang (who in 1993 appeared in 15 films!) — is the best reason to catch this third in the series of Indiana Jones knockoffs.

    Richard Corliss
    TIME
    http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1828343,00.html

    A memorably badass Jet Li.
    Nathan Rabin
    AV Club
    http://www.avclub.com/content/cinema/the_mummy_tomb_of_the_dragon

  4. Sounds like Tomb of the Dragon Emperor met everyone’s expectations… fun, but Brendan Frasier tries too hard to act, so he has an unnatural feel on screen

  6. @media dude… I think Fraser can act — but the script stunk to high heaven, which made it tough. Even the best actor can’t overcome a bad script sometimes.

    @trench… And yeah… I totally agree. Without Rachel Weisz, the character was blah and uninteresting. And though I like Bello, again I think the script stunk (a book reading for crimeny’s sake?!?!) and it needed a lot more help.

    I’m scared… No, terrified… that there will be another one. We can only hope it goes straight to DVD.

    fitzs last blog post..**Warning .. http:/ is a known spammer . delete this message

  7. I found this movie to be overly done and cheesy but I haven’t seen the previous mummy films so I’m not sure if you have to watch the first two to enjoy this one. Because honestly I thought this was worst the Failure to Launch and that’s saying a lot.

    Orcas last blog post..500 HITS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  8. I’m looking for the title of the song playing in the background when Evie and Rick sit down for dinner. It’s about 10 minutes into the movie. It’s a very famous piece. I think I’ve heard it before and its really bugging me and i NEED to know what that song is

  9. Wish I could help, but I honestly don’t remember the song they were playing in the background as they sat down to dinner. It was definitely a classic piece of music, but I don’t recall enough of what I heard to say one way or another, sorry…

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