‘The Mummy’ Should Have Considered Staying Dead
When All of the Cast did Not Return
-----The newest installment of the ‘Mummy’ franchise had tough competition during the earlier months of summer. With box office champions like ‘Iron Man,’ ‘Indiana Jones,’ and ‘The Dark Knight’ leading the way, many wondered if the fans would come out for the nearly dead franchise. People did, but unfortunately, due to a weaker script and the absence of previous ‘Mummy’ films female lead Rachel Weisz, this one doesn’t live up to its predecessors.When All of the Cast did Not Return
-----Alex O’Connell, the O’Connell’s young son from ‘Mummy Returns’ is now all grown up and digging for Mummy’s himself. Meanwhile, his parents lead a dull existence in their London mansion. When Alex digs up the Dragon Emperor out in the deserts of China, his parents are asked to transport a sacred jewel down to where the Emperor’s Tomb is now being held. Unaware of their son’s presence, the two run into him at Evey O’Connell’s brother Jonathan’s night club. As they struggle to work out their waning relationship with their son, a Mummy is just yearning to be awakened…etc.
-----Brendan Frasier returns as Mummy slayer Rick O’Connell with his usual energy and enthusiasm for what has become one of his career defining roles, and a pretty popular character throughout the last decade. Sadly, the only other returning cast member from the previous two ‘Mummy’ films is the always hilarious John Hannah as comedic relief Jonathan. His humor and Frasier’s affinity for action keep this one above water, but just barely. Needless to say the ‘Mummy’ franchise was on a life line with this one, and shouldn’t consider a fourth feature without Rachel Weisz. Replacing Weisz as Evey O’Connell is the dreadful Maria Bello. The lines aren’t written for her, she can’t pull them off, and her accent is ridiculous. You can see Weisz using all of the same lines efficiently and skillfully, but it’s a disaster with Bello. Every scene she’s in she murders as you think, what if it were Weisz? If only. In her defense, they should have rewritten it for her a bit more, but when push comes to shove she’s terrible, and the primary reason this ‘Mummy’ hardly makes the rent-it cut. Filling out the cast are small turns by the skilled Michelle Yeoh as Zi Juan, the amateurish and occasionally annoying Luke Ford as Alex O’Connell, and a surprisingly small role for Jet Li as the highly publicized, primarily silent, statue of a character, the Dragon Emperor.
-----The movie’s script takes the far fetched popcorn fun of the ‘Mummy’ franchise to new levels. Unfortunately, these, “new levels” are a couple of floors down. Leaving the Egyptian theme behind, this ‘Mummy’ has everything form Yetis to three-headed dragons to a man who can control all four elements. Call it ambitious if you will, but I call it an unnecessary stretch. While the Yetis do look good and provide some humor, this ‘Mummy’ is just really far removed form its predecessors glory days. Imagine the giant scorpion from ‘The Mummy Returns’ being in 90% of the movie, and you’ll understand the newest feature. The plot is, however, basically the same. Mummy awakens, Rick shoots, guardian of tomb tries to kill them, guardian then teams up with them, crazy pilot flies them to catch mummy, etc. While this formula was great for the first two inspired movies, without the full cast to carry repetitions’ weight, it doesn’t withstand.
-----Technically, the effects are pretty slick, in a ridiculous but fun sort of way. Not to mention perhaps the most ambitious Mummy Battle Royale in a full out war between Mummies. The motives here are perhaps a bit trivial in conception, but still pretty fun to look at. Everything else stays pretty close to Hollywood standards with the musical score slightly reminiscent of the first two films, but ultimately different. The cinematographer has some different ground to cover this time around given the Chinese theme, and there are some pretty amazing locations and sets.
-----In the end, fans of the original classics like me are going to see this despite anyone’s warnings. For this, I say rent it. There’s still some fun in the action and performances form Hannah and Fraser, but all else is ultimately lost. Jet Li was obviously just a marketing ploy as he has very few lines and very little to do at all in the movie; so Li fans who don’t care about the ‘Mummy’ franchise should stay away. This could have been a great epilogue to the series like many of the sequels that come out over five years after their predecessor. Take the recent ‘Indiana Jones’ installment, or 2007’s ‘Live Free or Die Hard,’ both of which maintained the fun and quality of their predecessors. The bottom line is, when you don’t get all of the leads back, you’re setting yourself up for failure, and that is exactly the case here. However, due to nostalgia, fun action, and the valiant efforts of Hannah and Fraser, ‘Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor’ is worth renting for die hard fans of the franchise.
