Post by BIGFANBOY on Aug 8, 2008 5:56:35 GMT -5
THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR
Review by Gary Dean Murray
At one time Brendan Fraser was a promising actor. With Honors and Gods and Monsters both showed something more than just a pretty face on the Silver Screen. Unfortunately, most of his career has been lost in stupid comedies like Dudley Do-right and George of the Jungle. Things changed with The Mummy, a role that seemed to have it all for this thespian. With its mix of action and comedy, the script was peppered with so many one liners and thrill sequences that it not only boosted his career but that of the Universal Monster franchise as well. Well, the third time out (fourth if you count Scorpion King) has arrived with the second longest title of the summer The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
The film starts about 2000 years ago and a ruthless barbarian (Jet Li) is set to take over all of China. He has constructed the great wall, burying his enemies under the stone catacombs. Now that our warrior has become emperor, he realizes that the only thing stopping his world domination is time. He will never be able to conquer the world unless he is immortal. So he dispatches his favorite general (Russell Wong) to find a witch (Michelle Yeoh) who has the power to change the Emperor. The general and this mystic woman work together to find the secret to eternal life and unfortunately fall in love. This is much to the chagrin of our Emperor, who wants this woman as his own. When all the cards are played out, we find that the Emperor goes back on his word, destroying the general. The witch casts a curse turning both the Emperor and his army into statues.
Flash forward a few hundred years, and it is the time between wars. Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) and his wife (newcomer to the series Maria Bello) have retired to the English countryside. She is a successful novelist writing two different tales about the mummy. Now she is suffering with writer’s block. All he wants to do is find a new hobby, this time fly-fishing. When offered by the English Government to go to China to take back an artifact, they jump at the chance. But both are worried about their son Alex - a young man with the desire to hunt for long lost artifacts. It seems that their son is not in school but on a dig in China, and it looks as though he has discovered the Emperor’s tomb. The son and the parents all meet at a bar run by the brother in law from the previous flicks. It seems that our mummy hating tag-a-long adventurer has been doing well for himself in the bar business.
The artifact that the O’Connell’s have is just the catalyst that is needed to awaken the Emperor. All this builds up to a chase scene that is half Indiana Jones and half Stagecoach. The misadventure of stirring the spirit of this evil man leads to the fabled city of Shangri-La and waters of eternal life, turning the Emperor into the Dragon Emperor, a man with shape-shifting abilities. That set piece eventually leads to a giant battle between the forces of good, our mummy slayers, and the buried army of the interior wall versus the Dragon Emperor and his legion of mummified soldiers.
The total experience of this version of The Mummy has the same basic look of the last outings. There are swirling clouds of desert with vistas of desolation. They also get the famed city of Shangri-La, which looks right out of an old movie. But this time, CGI yetis are tossed into the mix. We also get the Dragon Emperor being able to turn into Ghidhora, the three-headed monster. There is such a mishmash of styles and other sources that this easily becomes a confused mess. Brendan can’t find anything new for his character so he just yells louder. It's as if his O’Connell has a volume control that is broken. I know that Fraser is a good actor but he has coasted twice in the same summer. A friend of mind thinks he's just waiting for his looks to fade so he can tackle some more meatier and character driven roles. I have no idea, but I do know that he hasn’t made much of what should be a star turn. The special effects just engulf him.
Maria Bello is stuck playing the wife role and never brings much to the part except for a cute reminder that she is not Rachel from our other flicks. Michelle Yeoh can do no wrong in any role she attempts. She rises above the mess of this adventure and shows some depth as the caring protector of ancient secrets. Besides she is the best female martial artist that has every graced the Big Screen. And of course, Jet Li just kicks butt all over the place. It would have been a better movie with just these two in an epic battle. Eventually Universal turned the 1930’s Mummy franchise into an Abbott & Costello flick killing horror with comedy. And since history repeats itself, especially in Hollywood, I’m sure someday in the future we will see Cheech & Chong Smoke the Mummy or Will Ferrell in Step-Mummies. The past always reproduces itself.
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