Shawn's Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Review

2008 Movie #80 - Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

After this long, was anyone really begging for this movie to be made? When I first heard the announcement for this movie I kind of assumed it was going to be a straight to DVD sequel. But then look at that, most of the original cast came back (well two of them anyway) and the bad boy was getting a big ole theatrical release. Jet Li being in it though did lend some credibility to the project. What does the movie do with Jet Li though? Fucking wasted him. That being said, the whole movie kind of feels like a waste, and just brings me back to my initial reaction to this movie, was just wondering why they bothered making this one.

That’s really the main problem I had with this movie, is that there really doesn’t seem to be any clear reason why this movie needed to be made. It doesn’t expand the story in any interesting way. It’s just a rehash of the older movies, which I didn’t think anybody liked that much anyway. So why bother, especially after 6 years. I mean sure Indiana Jones just came out with a new movie after almost 20 years but that’s Indiana fucking Jones. You’re the Mummy, and if even the Indiana Jones movie ended up being a let down, what chance do you have Mummy?

Another thing that slightly angered me about this movie as well is that most of it doesn’t even make any fucking sense. For example, in the beginning they talk about all the powers the mummy has, including but not limited to controlling fire, ice, I think steel, shape shifting and all sorts of wild shit. So…why does he never do that? Why does he waste the heroes time with sword fights and car chases and what not when he could just fire or ice or shape shift their asses?

Sometimes he does it, but the heroes always easily escape because he never seems to do it right. When he shoots a fireball it just doesn’t shoot out all of a sudden, the fire ball forms in his hand for 5 fucking minutes so the heroes can have plenty of time to realize “Uh oh he’s gonna shoot that, better duck behind this rock.” Another example is when he makes sharp icicles come out of the ground where our heroes are standing. However he makes them shoot up in front of them and then they slowly make their way towards them, giving them again plenty of time to back up to safety. Why the hell wouldn’t he just have them immediately shoot up underneath them?! There’s no getting away from that! You have to think these things through Mr. Mummy. He also morphs into some creatures later on in the movie, including a three headed dragon which I'll admit is kind of awesome. Again it doesn't make much sense though because he only changes into them for a few minutes (most of the time seconds) at a time, and never really does anything cool or productive when he's in those forms. Overall as far as mummies go, this one could use a little studying up.

The yeti sequence was one from the trailers that I was actually looking forward to and for the most part it was kind of neat except it leaves me with one question...how in the fuck do these yetis know about american football?! That moment took me completely out of the movie because it doesn't only make no sense at all, but it's not even funny. In fact it's painfully unfunny. So why sink your movie even further for the sake of a lame joke?

Good lord long review, but it ain't over yet. The acting in this movie certainly doesn't help the situation either. Brendan Frasier basically does the same shit that he always does, shout his dialogue, make goofy faces, and generally not quite piss you off, but you can't really like him either. Maria Bello does her best to replace Rachel Weisz but it just doesn't work. Just everything about the character feels wrong this time around. Their son, played by I believe Luke Ford, doesn't make sense as a character because he looks like he would be Brendan Frasier's brother, definitely not his son. Also the actor is just god awful. He looks like he thinks hes fucking amazing and that just angered me more. Any attempts to be suave are just pathetic and overall his performance was just bad, bad. His girlfriend was also quite terrible. Also as mentioned above Jet Li is maybe in the movie for 6 or 7 minutes which is just a fucking waste of epic porportions.

When I look back over this review it looks like I really hated this movie. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't very good either. It just feels pointless overall, with decent but underwhelming action and annoying performances, except of course Jet Li but that barely counts as a performance since his character is CGI for 95% of the movie. I'll give this one the score I do because it was never boring at least, and kept me entertained but mostly because of just how damn goofy the whole thing was.

**/5