AT THE MOVIES WITH JUSTIN SIMS

The Mummy:  Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

To be completely honest, there was not a single movie I was interested in reviewing because after the release of The Dark Knight it seemed to be really light on any quality films. That’s what I attribute a lot of the success to the major moneymaker, lack of competition. Regardless, I chose The Mummy:  Tomb of the Dragon Emperor to sit through. I consider this a waste of my Sunday night. Normally I try to take as much out of a movie as I can, something has to be good about it. I enjoyed the first couple in the series (The Mummy and The Mummy Returns) and a lot of that is attributed to the Indiana native Brendan Fraser, but even he couldn’t keep this film above water.

One of the things that bothered me from the beginning was how they changed the characters from its predecessors. The now retired Rick (Fraser) and Evelyn (Maria Bello, who replaced Rachel Weisz) O’Connell seem to do espionage work and are intrigued by it. This seems quite different from the grave digging, treasure-searching duo who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time of the two movies before it. Also, another point that stands out which threw me off completely was the age progression of their son. Their son is now supposed to be in college, so he is roughly about 20 years old, while Fraser and Bello still look like they’re in their mid 30s.  The age progression between the second movie and this third installment doesn’t match up within the family.

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But regardless, Alex (Luke Ford), the son, has dropped out of college to become a famous treasure hunter like his father and found the lost army and remains of Emperor Han (Jet Li). As you can imagine, the elemental controlling Emperor Han comes back to life and is searching to awaken his terracotta army and to become immortal. There are more twists and turns throughout this movie that make it more complex and, I’m assuming, interesting by having the comic relief character and another love interest for the son, among others.

On a lighter side, this movie can be entertaining if you can get passed all this and just sit back and enjoy the movie, you could quite possibly enjoy the film. Brendan Fraser is quite a bit of fun as usual, not as much in the others because he’s portraying more of the strong, confident hero rather than the clumsy, lucky fool of its predecessors. That’s what I missed in this film, Fraser getting to completely be his old character. But as long as you are not expecting much from this film, it is worth a watch, even if it’s not in a major theater. Sitting at home with the family is completely acceptable for this one. Most kids will enjoy the special effects and the mild humor. I on the other hand did not. 

1 Star