TGWTG User Blogs

I don't normally review films, since I find it easier to review anime and anything associated with it, but I also don't normally review new films. I like to help recommend old films and series that people might like or on the other extreme I like to steer them away from anything that's terrible, but since this film is so atrociously bad and since not many reviews have come up for it I feel it's necessary I take a break from my comfort zone and fill you in.

I'm actually a fan (albeit not a huge one) of the first two Mummy movies. They're not brilliant, but they're very entertaining and have a very likeable quality to them. Also, despite being obvious family adventure movies they could be pretty dark. I obviously preferred the first to the second, but the second didn't really do the first film injustice, it was essentially the same movie.
Looking back, yeah they're not great movies, but as a child I loved them, and I think they represent what the best in lame, clichéd action movies can represent. Also as a side note I don't consider The Scorpion King a prequel, it's a spin-off and everyone knows it. It's also really bad. Don't watch it.

So anyway when a new Mummy film was announced I honestly had no words. I mean, what should I expect? Will it just be the same as the last two? Will they try something different? Well the answer to both of those questions, is no. It feels like a completely different movie. In fact if it was called something different and it was screened back to back with The Mummy and The Mummy Returns the only thing that would tip me off that it's the same film are any references to the last two films. I admit I loved the idea of changing the setting from Egypt to China. It broadens the possibilities and I think everyone had enough of seeing Imhotep come back inexplicably (halariously the only reference to Imhotep by name is it's the name of a bar ^^). Also there's some great opportunity for cultural history and the like.
Fat chance. The Chinese is so stereotyped and the history so inaccurate that I wish the guy I sat next to was a historian who majored in oriental culture and history, just to see him vomit or his head explode, or I don't know, something like that.

The story is bad. Like how bad? Really bad. It's just so clichéd and everything is so unexplained that everyone should just wear signs around their necks saying "Deus Ex Machina", just for convenience sake. I mean the first line of the film is: "Long ago, there was a great battle between many powerful armies" Or something along those lines. What, that was the best they could come up with? Starting the film off by telling us there was some war? Jesus Christ.

Well yes the story is that a fictional Chinese emperor, Han (played by Jet Li...well I say played...we'll get to that later) gained power by totaling all his enemies and burying them underneath the Great Wall of China when it was built. Mastering all five elements he yearned the one thing everyone wants: Immortality. He found a surprisingly attractive witch (played by Michelle Leoh) who claimed she could give it to him, but she fell in love with his most loyal friend and support, General Ming. After he receives his immortality however he kills Ming and mortally wounds her, however he was cursed and he and his army are turned into Terracotta statues.
Whether or not this is based on a real Chinese legend or history itself, it's idiotic and completely unoriginal. The actual story takes place in 1947, with former espionage and Mummy hunter Rick O'Connell (Brendan Frasier) trying to live life in retirement with his beloved wife Evelyn (Mariah Bello), writing novels, shooting fish, you know, the usual late 40's life style. Mean while their son Alex (Luke Ford) makes the find of the century: The tomb of the Dragon emperor. He meets up with his uncle Jonathon (John Hannah) who owns a bar in China. Sent there to return a priceless diamond, the four meet up and Alex  shows them his find. But when an evil group hell bent on resurrecting Han intervene the Dragon Emperor returns and so, with the help of some ass kicking Chinese girl named Lin (Isabella Leong), the group have to stop Han from regaining his immortality, his army, and taking over the world.

Now the story may sound lame and cheesy, but for a film that follows the Mummy and the Mummy Returns it's excusable, but let me return to my previous sign joke. Literally everything that happens in this film happens without reason or explanation. When I mentioned that witch who got mortally wounded, she actually survived, as she somehow crawls to Tibet and is saved by Yeti's, who take her to what is essentially the fountain of youth. I find it so ironic that the world's greatest urban legend was found by another urban legend. And this kind of random story telling continues. A skeleton army is raised from the dead without explanation. The emperor Han will grant his army immortality if they cross the great wall (bizarrely devoid of any tourists, backpackers or any human life what so ever). The very dagger that was used to mortally wound the witch is the only thing that can kill Han, if stabbed through his heart. It's so random and so...there...that if any of the characters came driving by in an ice cream van shooting bombs containing man-eating seagulls out the back you really wouldn't bother to ask questions.

Now let's talk about the characters.
Brendan Frasier returns as Rick O'Connell, and essentially it's the same character. On the other hand, it feels a lot like the character he played in Journey to the Center of the Earth. So in other words, it's Brendan Frasier playing Brendan Frasier. But you know, he's a funny character, and has that ‘hero' aura around him, and as a lead he does OK. Character wise it does feel very different though. Compare the character in this movie to the one that was going to be hung in the beginning of the first movie for petty crimes, and they seem totally different.
Frasier also continues his tradition of really awful lines to use when vanquishing the main villain, always revolving around hell. When he stabbed the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns, he said: "Go to Hell! And take your friends with you!" That's bad, but this time it's just plain unbearable:
"Now you'll rule Han...in Hell!" Thank God this only happens at the end; otherwise I'd have walked out.

Now in regards to the character of Evelyn O'Connell, I knew full well beforehand that Rachel Weisz had been replaced by Mariah Bello. Fine. I actually like seeing that considering most movie series will just kill and forget about a character when the actor/actress refuses to return. But what an awful choice in casting.
Now I don't care if that's what she stated, but Mariah Bello makes absolutely no effort to imitate the character Weisz created. Before, Eve was a femme fatale, but not too much like one. She was attractive, sassy and ass kicking. Now, she's some posh British bitch who writes books and does as much minimal gun slinging and ass kicking as a script will allow. Before, Eve owned Rick, you could see she had the pants on, but now, the man reigns supreme. A great character destroyed.
And even worse, her acting is appalling. Every line uttered by her sounds like the worst take, with very little commitment and overall poor expression. And get this; she's lined up for three more sequels. Well I'll sure as hell be skipping out on those.

Jonathon Carnaham, Eve's cowardly and comical brother, is essentially useless. Before, he wouldn't do a great deal, but he'd deliver that comedic edge to the story that kept it flowing. His hate (and let me say this is no exaggeration, it's pretty much the only recurring joke he uses) for mummies is apparent, but there's nothing else in the movie that carries the same hilarity the first movies did. Apart from Frasier, John Hannah is the only returning actor, and I'm grateful for that, but when your funniest line revolves around a Yak being your ideal model for a woman, why did he even bother?
It's actually on a Jonathon joke that the movie ends, and let me tell you, I think it's the worst ending in cinematic history. After Han is defeated and all the loose ends resolved, Jonathon decides he's had enough of Mummies, again, and decides to take his new shiny diamond to, oh lets say, Peru, where there are no Mummies. As the car departs, a message flashes on screen reading something along the lines of:
"However once he arrived, mummies were discovered in Peru soon after..."
I honestly have no words. Except what a pathetic excuse for a joke! I mean, it's not even the concept that's bad. The message flashes on screen in almost the standard font Microsoft Word starts with, as if it was a total and complete last minute edit. That is officially the worst closing joke to a movie, the worst moment in the Mummy series, and the worst ending to a film of all time!

Alex O'Connell is the only character I actually really liked. He's tough, has a bad attitude, and we can see him as a hero still in fruition, but the relationship he has with his father is a little ridiculous. His father just hates him for no apparent reason other than him dropping out of school and discovering the greatest find in history. Yeah I'd hate my son too. And when Rick nearly dies from a stab wound, there's very little reconciliation between him and his son, it's like saying ‘when your family is crumbling, get stabbed'.
I also thought the love interest between Alex and Lin was weird. The dialogue, whilst not terrible, implies that because the two are the only characters of a similar age group (well in appearance, Lin is supposed to be like over 2000 or something) they have to get together, like everyone is expecting it. Screw the fact that the first time we see Lin she tried to kill Alex, that doesn't matter, they've got to get it on otherwise she'll have no purpose.

Which brings me to the Chinese actors. It's the embodiment of what Hollywood does to great Asian actors careers. Though all the advertising shows Jet Li to be the co-star of the film, he only appears in the beginning and end, reducing his ‘role' to nothing more than a cameo, and the same can be said for Michelle Yeoh, which is a shame because both of them are two of my favorite Chinese actors. Jet Li is known for his martial arts, but only one scene displays it here, and it's barely worth mentioning.  There is a fight scene at the end between these two actors, and whilst it looks impressive, the camera work is so shoddy and so bouncy it's totally ruined.
Isabella Leong is used in the traditional young and attractive Chinese actress role: A girl who starts off with strength and independence, but is conquered by a Caucasian male and is stripped of her role in the story. And it's so apparent. She wants nothing more than to defeat Han, and to be the one to do it, but in the end she takes no part in the final battle, instead she's kidnapped and rescued.

The villains, apart from Han, are some of the worst ever. Stereotypical, silent and overly pointless, they embody everything that arises from poor writing. The main one, General Yang, shows nothing but blind loyalty towards Han, but is totally disregarded and totally useless. But the most hilarious example is Choi, his female sidekick. Barely uttering a word and with an overused scar on her face (I swear I've seen her before, but in Russian), she's in less than 5 scenes, and does nothing in all of those. The only surprising thing about these two is they survive a missile explosion on a car, but are quickly put in place when Yang is caught in a rotating wooden crank, and Choi simply tries to pull him out, refusing to let go, and is crushed with him.
I assume there's a deleted scene showing that these two actually had some connection that spanned a lifetime, starting from an awkward childhood, with him saving her from certain death, but because of his age their love can never blossom until right to the moment of their demise where they depart to the afterlife as one pure...no, wait, it was probably just fuck awful writing.

Does this film have anything redeeming about it? Yes. The special effects are very good, and the battle scene, whilst utterly pointless, unexplained and there just for the sake of being there, looks awesome. But it's an example of special effects being abused. For example, when they're in a cave that contains the fountain of youth, Jonathon looks past it and sees the magical land of Shangri-la, an entire country unexplored and unchartered...but it's completely forgotten about. Han looks OK in the way he cracks and falls apart, but you just remember that this effect is standing here instead of Jet Li, and you get pissed off. Furthermore, some of the bizarre creatures he turns into look interesting, but are so bizarre you can't help but laugh at them.

I also liked the sets and the setting used, but it's all stereotyped China, where the great wall is just a rickety plane ride away and every hijack-able truck contains fireworks.

I try to remember the same way I could regard the old Mummy movies as a child and like them for being implausible, but I know my younger self, and he would absolutely hate this movie. I'm not saying there didn't need to be a sequel to The Mummy Returns, its part of a series so there would be one inevitably, but I can't believe they went this far downhill. And as I said earlier, there are 3 sequels lined up, probably going under the same setting. It almost makes me wish the original plan for The Mummy to be a low budget Horror series was used, that way this abomination would never ever have been made.