THE MUMMY 3: THE TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR. (2008) DIRECTED BY ROB COHEN. BASED ON CHARACTERS CREATED BY STEPHEN SOMMERS. CO-PRODUCED BY STEPHEN SOMMERS. DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PICTURES.
STARRING BRENDAN FRASER, JOHN
HANNAH, MARIA BELLO, LUKE FORD, JET LI, MICHELLE YEOH, LIAM
CUNNINGHAM, ISABELLA LEONG AND RUSSELL WONG. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.
©
The two original MUMMY films
are two of my favourite films of all time, and I don't normally go in
much for action-adventure flicks. THE MUMMY (1999)
and THE MUMMY RETURNS (2001)
had it all, though. They had everything you could possibly require in
a great action-adventure romp.
They had
Brendan Fraser as a sexy-as-hell, rough-and-ready adventurer-type who
falls in love with Rachel Weisz's prim but sexy librarian character
back in the Roaring 'Twenties. Rick and Evie's attraction was
instantaneous and so hot and powerful that if you stood too close to
them, you were liable to get scorched. They were so much in love that it
was obvious to everyone who knew them.
Even when
they had their son Alex, they still continued to have their amazing
archaeological adventures together. Adventures such as accidentally
bringing the evil Egyptian Mummy Imhotep back to life and then engaging in a
frantic race against time to put him back in his box before he raised
his Unholy Army Of The Dead and destroyed the world as we know it.
You know. Stuff like that.
Evie
and Rick were assisted in their heroic endeavours by Evie's brother
Jonathan, a lazy but charming scoundrel who preferred a good old
get-rich-quick scheme to a day's work any time,
and Ardeth Bay, the handsome Magi whose tribe had guarded the
entrance to the Mummy's tomb for centuries so that Imhotep's terrible
evil would be contained. Well, they were obviously looking the other
way the day Evie and Rick unintentionally raised the dreaded Mummy from the
dead...!
The two
films are just so full of life and colour, fun and spectacle,
sexiness, charm and hair-raising brushes with death that it's
impossible not to be captivated by them. They even had Dwayne The
Rock Johnson starring in the
sequel as the magnificently-muscled Scorpion King, who went on to
have his own movie spin-off. I mean, how freakin' awesome was that,
to have The Rock in
your movie? It's pretty darned awesome,
that's how awesome...!
I'm
sad to say that the third film in the trilogy, THE TOMB OF
THE DRAGON EMPEROR, doesn't even
come close to capturing the good-humoured pulsating vibrancy of its elder
siblings.
Firstly and
most importantly, Rachel Weisz doesn't reprise her role as Evie
O'Connell due to personal reasons. She's badly missed. No offence
intended to her replacement Maria Bello, but she can't hold a candle
to the quirky, warm, eccentric and unconventional Evie of the first
two films.
The
original Evie was a gutsy, charming woman, a devoted mum, a committed
Egyptologist and she was crazy about
her big blundering handsome hubby. I'm afraid there's not so much as
a spark between Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello. They kiss a bit all right,
but there's nothing there.
Evie
had some brilliant scenes in the first two films. Who could forget
the way she accidentally knocked down all of
the shelves in the library where she worked in the first film, or the
way she and Rick, crazed with grief, chased their abducted son Alex
halfway across Egypt in the sequel?
And as
for Evie's foxy-boxing with Anck-su-na-mun, with the two of them
barely dressed and covered in gold body paint, well, even as a woman
I found that pretty hot. They really got stuck in, the little
hussies, while their menfolk leered.
Okay, you're probably thinking
by now, we get it.
Rachel Weisz great, Maria Bello terrible...! That's about the height
of it, yes. Let's move on...
John
Hannah is back in the third film as a casino owner who's struck it
rich thanks to his part in the MUMMY adventures.
His lines aren't half as funny this time, though, and Jonathan
doesn't seem to have the warm,
good-humoured squabbling-siblings relationship with this Evie that he had with his
sister in the first two films. There's no chemistry whatsoever
between the siblings now, which is a shame.
Alex is all
grown-up now and having archaeological adventures of his own, but
he's played by a
chap
called Luke Ford now instead of Freddie Boath, the original Alex whom
I would have liked to see reprising his role. The new Alex is a bit
short on personality, charm and mischief, unlike the previous Alex
who, even as a kid, had those commodities by the bucket-load.
Sadly,
there's no sexy Ardeth Bay this time round, and no gorgeous, menacing
Arnold Vosloo as the Mummy either, because of course we're not in
Kansas any more, Toto. I mean, Egypt. We're not in Egypt
any more. We're actually in
China, which I humbly beg leave to suggest was a possible mistake on
the part of the film-makers. It's nothing against China, though, China's great!
It's just that Evie
and Rick work much better as Egyptologists. What about Evie's
background as a devoted Egyptologist? Would anyone want that to go to
waste? What
would the Benbridge Scholars have to say about it, for one thing?
Quite a lot, if I know them. (Movie in-joke!)
I can understand the film-makers wanting to change things up a bit but, if I were them, I'd have left well enough alone and adhered to the motto: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' I'd have made a third movie about Egyptian Mummies. They're the best kind of Mummy, haha. Ask Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee if you don't believe me.
I can understand the film-makers wanting to change things up a bit but, if I were them, I'd have left well enough alone and adhered to the motto: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' I'd have made a third movie about Egyptian Mummies. They're the best kind of Mummy, haha. Ask Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee if you don't believe me.
Anyway,
why exactly are the
gang in China? Well, Rick and Evie are escorting a precious jewel
known as The Eye Of Shangri-La to
the aforementioned country, having tired of their self-imposed
retirement. While they're there, they discover that their son Alex,
who's also there, has been somewhat instrumental in bringing back
from the dead an evil Chinese Emperor from two thousand years ago.
Hmmm. Like mother, like son, wouldn't you say?
This
fellow, Emperor Han by name, has dastardly plans to cross the Great Wall with his
Terracotta Army, thereby becoming invincible. Don't ask me for more
details than that. I found a lot of this film quite confusing.
Any-hoo, once that's done, he plans to...
Well, you've guessed it.
Take over the world. As Evie's brother Jonathan so succinctly put it
in one of the earlier films: 'Ah yes, the old
take-over-the-world plan.' In
other words, here we go again...!
Naturally,
Alex's parents can't resist an opportunity to save the world once
more from a marauding un-dead ghoul who thinks he's people. They get
stuck in good-style, giving father and son a chance to heal the rift
that's been steadily growing between them.
There's
a lot of fighting along the way, a lot of martial arts (Jet
Li himself plays the Emperor Han), a few enormous Yetis, oodles of snow and, seemingly, a lot more computerisation than there was in the
first two films, which is disappointing. The mountains look
computerised, but I could be wrong about that. There
are times when TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR
looks more like the computer game than an actual film, which always
bugs me.
There's nowhere near as much colour this time round, either. Obviously, they're missing the rich golds and burnished reds and browns of Ancient Egypt, but also there's a lot of snow in this one and the Terracotta Army are of necessity rather beige in appearance, so that probably explains the lack of colour to some extent.
I don't
dig Liam Cunningham as Brendan Fraser's obligatory 'old mucker,'
either. A fellow Irishman he might be, but he lacks the charm of
Rick's previous old pals: the nutty Izzy who was shit-scared of being
'shot in the arse' again,
the sleazy, greedy cowardly Benny who would have sold his own granny
for a few bucks and poor stiff-upper-lip old Winston, who just wanted
to see one last bit of military action before he shuffled off his mortal
coil.
Brendan
Fraser, looking paler and less stubbly than usual- in fact, he's
exceptionally closely-shaven- acts his butt off once more, throwing
himself into the action scenes with all his usual gusto but, sadly,
he just doesn't have the back-up he deserves. Like a footballer who's
wormed the ball away from an opponent but now there's no-one from his
own team standing by to kick it to, see?
I first
saw this film at Christmas-time, which would be an ideal time to
watch the whole trilogy back-to-back, in the same way you'd watch the
INDIANA JONES films,
another seasonal favourite. Similar too in the way that the Indy
series had its first few good films as well and then something of a
dud at the end, THE CRYSTAL SKULL. Listen,
it happens to everyone. It's nowt to be ashamed of. Like
losing your erection mid-ride, heh-heh-heh.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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