Cast: Brendan Fraser, Maria Bello, Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li

Director: Rob Cohen

Screenplay: Alfred Gough

Running time: 1 hr 51 mins

Genre: Action/Adventure



CRITIQUE:



Summer blockbuster movies, most of them, require us to be dumbed-down idiots who can’t distinguish plot from blot. Only a lucky handful of few escape the tangles unscathed. This is why we have movies like this, a stretch of never-ending sequels, inundates the big screens – executive cows cashing in for the bucks, overlooking their brain-dead merchandise. And this, ladies and gentlemen, signals us to defend our rationalities that we are no morons without any cinematic reason. Why in the name of Zeus’s butthole would call a movie THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR when there’s not a single trace of a mummified corpse somewhere? Alright, there is an army of terracotta warriors and Jet Li’s titular Emperor in stark solid clay – but technically, they are not mummified but cursed. Or perhaps the deserts of Egypt had become too dry for a plot already that this franchise had to migrate to China for a thirst of quest.


Rob Cohen, who directing CV includes THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, XXX, and STEALTH (yes, that “Stealth” film), knows his actioners and his want for spectacle, but his promise of a franchise reboot falls flat hard on its nose. From the rapid opening, Chinese history lessons fired like bullets, to the recent day caper of obvious-Indiana Jones incarnations, it’s all formulaic, only that the scripting is much worse. Anyone who could remember that boy Alex in THE MUMMY RETURNS and find him amusing, well don’t hold your hopes for this one. A fully grown-up Alex, played boringly by Luke Ford, has no tick compared to his child counterpart in the predecessor, absent of any personality. Moreover, as 20-year old son to Brendan Fraser’s Rick O’Connell and Maria Bello’s Evelyn, there is no sense of connection distinguishable. Fraser as his old self plays it straightforwardly, but the massive hole in the franchise is left by amorous Rachel Weisz and filled by Maria Bello. Sad to say, this is not Bello’s film, and she is a miscast. Sporting an inauthentic-sounding Brit-accent, she may be a talented thespian that ruled the indie scene, she certainly looks like a performer here in desperate need for a mainstream affair. And there is no spark between her and Fraser, both summoning humour in their scenes, but in result, all are misplaced rather than spot-on.


And we have the plot. A witch-slash-swordswoman (conventional Michelle Yeoh) embarks on a vengeance journey against evil, immortality-hungry Emperor (underused Jet Li), and culminating in a rousing battle-in-the-field (yes, this is the time to wake up from your seat), terracotta army versus vengeful murdered warriors (who all apparently haven’t rotted to their bones in centuries’ worth of being buried) – but friendly white Yetis? And an omnipotent transfiguring Emperor? Don’t make us laugh. Certainly, this is the extent of a creature-feature than even THE MUMMY and THE MUMMY RETURNS did not prod a finger on.



VERDICT:

It is undoubtedly the time for this franchise to go back to the deserts of Egypt and bury itself completely. Instead of a reboot, what we get is a shut-down. An incompetent cast, a clichéd plot, a been-there-done-that approach – what else is there to like. Oh, by the way, THE MUMMY 3 has the most ridiculous CGI work so far this year.



RATING: D