BOTTOM
LINE:
On it's own, this film
is a major disappointment. When compared to the previous Mummy films,
it's even more disappointing. None of the fun, adventure or thrills
are present in this botched, insipid outing which does not come anywhere
close to the standard set by the previous entries in this franchise.
THE GOOD:
Being the third entry in the Mummy series, it was time
to change direction away from Ancient Egypt and the filmmakers chose
to exploit ancient Chinese history by basing this Mummy on an ancient
Chinese Emperor (a perfectly cast Jet Li) who ruled millions in
Ancient China but was put under a curse by immortal queen Zi Juan
(again, a perfectly cast Michelle Yeoh) for killing her lover General
Ming who was the Emperor's right-hand man. Imprisoned in stone,
a warning was placed throughout history never to lift the curse
otherwise the Emperor will rise and enslave the human race. Basically
it's the same plot as the previous films just with different scenery
and actors which is fine; you do not expect more than that from
a film like this. Brendan Fraser is back as Rick O'Connell, and
together with Evie (a re-cast Maria Bello) they go to China on a
mission but subsequently discover that their son Alex (Luke Ford)
has dug up the Emperor and put him on display in the Museum. Before
you can blink, a group of Chinese soldiers awaken the Emperor and
all hell breaks loose. The rendering of Jet Li as the Mummy this
time around is different, but well done. He's clay based, as with
his Terracotta army, and has control over the five elements which
means he can do cool things like breath fire and make sharp icicles
to impale his enemies. Michelle Yeoh is great as the character of
Zi Juan, providing much of the explanation as to what the Emperor
is up to and what they need to do to defeat him. An unexpected surprise
was the use of the Yeti, or in this case, three of them, who come
to the aid of our heroes on request. The film has a couple of interesting
things in it, but...
THE
BAD: This film is an excellent
example of studio/committee based crap designed to punch out the formula
in the hope of generating the expected amount of revenue. I have no
doubt that Mummy 3 will pull in its hundreds of millions, but the
sheer lack of quality, direction and fun in this installment will
turn the audience away from this franchise when it didn't need to
be. The reason both The
Mummy and The
Mummy Returns worked was because of an inspired sense of direction
and staging by director Stephen Sommers (who isn't a master by any
means, but he is a solid director). Rob Cohen on the other hand does
not seem to have any touch on the material; the film is lifeless,
poorly shot and insipid. The actors look like their going through
the motions. I felt sorry for Brendan Fraser; the poor guy not only
had to repeat his old performance but he had to play it against Maria
Bello, who is a good actress, but she cannot replicate the character
of Evie as Rachel Weisz did leaving Fraser looking like he's lost
most of the time. Alex's character isn't that great; I actually hoped
he would turn in to Mummy fodder at some point. The epic first on
screen battle between Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh is massively underwhelming;
not only is it not that long, but it's not well done. The rising of
General Ming's undead army works initially, but ultimately pushes
the film in to an over reliance on CG, which is a fault of all the
Mummy movies, but somehow because the rest of the film doesn't work
then this doesn't either. Overall, I walked out of this film disappointed
that I had wasted my money on it and hoped that the franchise can
rest before it gets worse than this lame-duck effort.
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