Featured Review: THE MUMMY 3

The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor



Starring- Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, John Hannah, Luke Ford, Michelle Yeoh, Isabella Leong, Russell Wong



Directed by Rob Cohen



Grade: B



"You fought one mummy Dad..."
"Yeah one mummy... twice!"

Who knew Brendan Fraser still had this much clout in Hollywood? After striking out in scarcely seen serious fare like The Air I Breathe and The Last Time, Fraser goes back to his action comedy roots so seamlessly, that the seven year gap since 2001's The Mummy Returns almost seems non-existent. The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor is by no means an outstanding film, but a fast-paced, easy to swallow adventure that pulls enough punches to gloss over some of the goofy content.

The Mummy franchise has always felt like a light-hearted rip-off of Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones series. Less overall violence, less Harrison Ford quips and more Fraser mugging. Dragon Emperor falls into the same vein as the previous two; our heroic characters get into peril time and time again, a massive hoard of the undead stage unrelenting attacks on them, and in the end they manage to scrape out a victory. It's a tried and true plot fitting for the old cinematic heroes of Errol Flynn's era.

Dragon Emperor picks up about 13 or 14 years after the previous installment. Rick O'Connell (Fraser) and wife Evelyn (Maria Bello, pulling a Darrin Stevens on the audience after Rachel Weisz opted out) are rich and retired in the English countryside, while unbeknown to them, son Alex has dropped out of college to follow in his parents' footsteps as an archaeologist and explorer. He finds the temple to the Emperor Han (Jet Li), a ruthless dictator who was frozen in stone by a curse. Of course through a twist of allegiances, the diamond stone that alleviates the curse falls into the wrong hands, Emperor Han is freed, and all hell breaks loose for the O'Connells.

The plot is your standard fare for action adventures set in foreign countries with mysterious ruins. Lots of booby traps and needlessly difficult puzzles and wall openings litter the tombs and temples. Fraser spouts "I can't believe this is happening again" type quotes for humor, although the script keeps the real groaners to a minimum. I won't even go into length badmouthing the field-goal kicking Chinese Abominable Snowmen. At least the bland Alex O'Connell character, all grown up from being the stereotypical 'meddlesome child' of action movies in The Mummy Returns, unlike Shia LeBeouf in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is played by too less of a name (Australian Luke Ford) to get spin-off aspirations.

Effects-wise, Dragon Emperor is pretty run-of-the-mill as well. Some good animation of the skeletons during the battle scenes, plus the snow-drenched Shangri-La temple, but a couple of bloody combustions involving Li's are much weaker. They devolve into almost cartoonish fashion. Director Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious, xXx) takes over for Stephen Sommers and works an almost exact rendering of what Sommers would have done with the project anyways. Tit for tat.

Maria Bello (A History Of Violence, Thank You For Smoking), pales in comparison to Rachel Weisz as the "second" Evelyn O'Connell. She's a good actress, attested by at least the films mentioned above, but working out of her element of moody dramas and feigning a British accent, she doesn't muster anything much more than a fond recollection of Weisz in the role.

Li, Michelle Yeoh, Isabella Leong, and Russell Wong however are spot on and interesting in their roles concerning the fate of China and the Emperor's rule. Yeoh, of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame, is no stranger to the physical side of her role, and Leong proves she can be capable of being a future serious actress. Li doesn't necessarily do much besides growl and kill minions, but he serves as a quiet force to a film that could otherwise lack some credibility.

The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor is nothing else but a summer blockbuster that needs a soda and popcorn to wash it down. By the time the soda gets thrown in the trash bin, the memory of such a film is thrown out of collective consciousness. It wouldn't be a terrible predicament to see a fourth installment in the Mummy franchise, but like this third film, it's not something to look forward to all summer. It's just... there.