The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor manages to capture the fun of the past Mummy films, but can’t escape some of the formula feel of a third film in a franchise.
For the third movie, the creators thankfully move the Mummy story out of Egypt and into a mysterious China which gives the film a fresh look. They also up the date by setting the story in the late 1940s and having the adventurous married couple the O’Connells joined by their son Alex, who is now in his twenties.
The film kicks off like the past Mummy movies with a historical look at our bad guy before he became a mummy. The Dragon Emperor (Jet Li) was set to rule all of China, but was cursed by a witch (Michelle Yeoh) for killing her lover (who was also the Emperor’s general). He and his men become terracotta statues and are hidden away from the world.
The film then jumps to the 1940s where Alex (Luke Ford) is attempting to become as famous as his parents. He has discovered the lost tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and is on the brink of finding the old boy himself. He is interrupted by a mysterious ninja like woman named Lin (Isabella Leong) – who has a few secrets of her own and a connection to the witch who cursed the emperor.
His parents are now retired, and spend their days in quieter hobbies – Rick (Brendan Fraser) has become a fisherman (just not very good at it) and Evelyn (Maria Bello) has turned into a novelist who write Mummy stories. They are lured out of retirement by the government and sent to return a jewel to China. This assignment gets the whole family back together at Uncle Jonathan’s (John Hannah) bar in time for the mummy to be woken up and the adventure to begin.
With all the players established, the film moves at a fast pace and never slows down enough for you to question some of the silliness of the adventure. Rick, Evelyn, Alex, Jonathan, and Lin have to reach Shangri La to stop Li from entering The Pool of Eternal Life – which will restore all his powers and give him the ability to free his army.
They are able to reach the Himalaya Mountains before the mummy (who is aided by an ambitious general with an army of his own) – which sets up a huge battle between the good guys and the bad guys. It looks like the good guys are going to lose until Lin calls on the Yetis (yes, abominable snowmen show up).
Following that battle, we head back to China for a final showdown between the O’Connell family and the emperor. This is where the film went off the tracks for me and turned into something out of Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness. The emperor has raised his terracotta army and the O’Connells need back-up so the witch raises all the dead soldiers the emperor had buried under the Great Wall of China.
The rest of the film features skeleton warriors taking on terracotta warriors while the O’Connells take on the emperor. It isn’t a huge letdown, but gets to be a bit too much.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor has several things working for it – including director Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious and XXX), a screenplay from Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (who brought Superman to television with Smallville), and the returning Fraser.
Cohen knows the action/adventure genre, and keeps the film moving fast enough for you not to really care how silly it all seems. He keeps the action up front, and the locations looking fantastic (a lot of work went into getting the look of China right and it pays off in the film).
Fraser is the reason to watch the movie and once again plays Rick as a good guy ready to stop the bad guy without a moment’s hesitation. He seems to know how silly the plot is and is just having fun with the character – which makes the audience have fun watching it.
There are some decent moments of acting (such as scenes with Alex where he comes to grips with the fact his son is grown), but Fraser keeps the character grounded in what the audience wants – lots of guns and explosions.
Bello is good in the film and a talented actress, but she lacks the charm that Rachel Weisz brought to the character. She doesn’t do a bad job in the movie (although her accent drops from time to time), but you can’t help but feel something just isn’t right.
The worst thing about the film is the way it wastes Jet Li. Rather than getting to see Li in explosive action sequences, the actor spends most of the time stomping around sluggishly in armor or as a terracotta statue. The fight sequence between Li and Fraser at the end is good, but not as good was what you might expect given Li’s martial arts background.
The film also suffers from some less than stellar special effects. The Mummy movies have always had a B-Movie/50’s serial film feel to them, but the effects of this film should have been a lot better.
The Yeti are decent, but some of the big battle at the end tends to get laughable as does the three-headed dragon Li morphs into after entering the Pool of Eternal Life.
The film looks great in Blu-ray’s 1080p picture, and the format really helped hold my interest in watching the movie. The filmmakers took a lot of care in making sure everything looked right, and the sets were amazing.
The details pop on the Blu-ray’s picture and help make the adventure a bit more believable. At the same time, the crystal clear picture hurts the weak special effects even more, and make parts of the film seem extremely cheesy.
The Blu-ray is loaded with special features that take you into the making of the movie and show what a huge effort it was to get the film to the screen. There are basic looks at the making of the movie; a visual commentary with Cohen; a look at the terracotta warriors; and the work that went into the Fraser/Li fight. There are also several deleted/extended scenes that are interesting, but don’t really add much to the movie.
The Blu-ray also comes with U-Control which features The Dragon Emperor’s Challenge (a Mummy trivia game); Know Your Mummy (which gives you the connections between the three films through clips, photos and more trivia); Scene Explorer (which gives you a multi-angle option on several scenes); and the BD-Live function.
The U-Control features are extra fun that fans of the franchise will really enjoy, but might feel like more of the same to just the occasional fan.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor moves at quick pace that will keep you from minding some of the weaker moments, and has all the elements to make it an entertaining ride. It is a fun movie, but it could have been better.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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