Runtime:
92 minutes
Directed
by: Chuck Russell
Starring:
The Rock, Steven Brand, Michael Clarke Duncan (RIP), Kelly Hu
From:
Universal
I
had nothing I really had to watch last night. Then, I not only heard
the news about The Rock stopping a robbery on the set of Fast Six bysimply charging at the criminals while in uniform, but the sad news
about Duncan passing away yesterday. I figured that I should rewatch
this film (which I got on DVD as a Christmas gift a long time ago) as
I hadn't seen it in so long and it'd be the appropriate thing to do.
I haven't seen too many MCD movies but this was one of those I had.
The
plot isn't exactly Shakespearean but that is OK: Mathayus (Rock) is a
desert warrior (an Akkadian) who along with his brother and another
guy is the last of his kind as an evil warlord (Brand) as taken over
much of the rest of the land in an unnamed African area. The bad guys
kill the other two guys and of course Rock is PISSED that his brother
got murdered. He meets up with a wacky sidekick (Grant Heslov) and
meets up with such characters as the warlord's sorceress (the
great-looking Hu) and the head of another tribe (the late Duncan),
all while riding around the desert on a CAMEL.
The
fact that a camel is his main mode of transportation says a lot about
what sort of flick this is. It's light entertainment, filled with
wackiness and predictable moments... yet it's wildly entertaining at
the same time; it's a shut your brain off and just sit back and enjoy
sort of movie. It reminded me of a Cannon production in the 1980's.
You know, an exotic setting, plenty of action, pretty girls, quite a
bit of humor, and a dose of plain silly. I really think this could
have been produced by Golan/Globus and released in '85 or '86. I have
no idea who you'd cast in those roles if it would have been made way
back when.
The
special effects don't look so hot 10 years later but they certainly
are better than what you saw in The Mummy Returns when Rock became a
giant scorpion thing; man I still remember that being terrible.
Like
I said, if you want some mindless yet satisfying entertainment and
enjoy the genre, then this is worth a watch.
I'll
be back real late Friday night.
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