The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

Runtime: 112 minutes

Directed by: Rob Cohen

Starring: Brendan Fraser, unfortunately not Rachel Weisz, Maria Bello (who shouldn't have been put in this position), and the squandered talents of Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh

From: Universal

Someone naming their nightclub after a villain they’ve dealt with twice and traumatized them… an example that exemplifies what is wrong with this movie. Before last night I had never viewed Emperor; I don’t stand Rachel Weisz but I thought it unfortunate her role was now played by someone else when she and Brendan Fraser worked quite well together and those characters were so charming together. The little detail that most of the buzz I heard in ’08 was negative was the bigger reason. Be that as it may, Emperor I’ve had on physical media for awhile and as I’ve talked all the preceding movies—somehow this was worse than expected.

After a long opening where we discover this has a rather similar setup to the 1999 Mummy, it became quickly apparent that the main characters are just lame. Rick and Evelyn are tired dorks who in the case of the former struggles w/ retirement while the latter is a novelist who has writer’s block. Worse, Evy (or Evie; I’ve seen both) just doesn’t act the same as before. I’ve never had any problem with Maria Bello before; however, her as an American playing a Brit who is just lame… while watching the movie I wondered if Weisz turned this down because she read the script; apparently, that was the main reason! She also just became a mom so that’s a good reason to bow out but I don’t blame her for thinking the general idea of this story was just lousy.

As they jumped in time to 1946, their child Alex is now an adult, who for some reason now sports an American accent; he became an archaeologist who doesn’t get along with Mom & Dad any longer… frankly, who wants to see those characters bickering with each other? I didn’t. It was impossible for me to get on board with the plot; thus, when the ridiculous then the totally preposterous moments were introduced into the story, it was impossible for me to care & thus I became bored of this nonsense.

As interesting as the China setting was (including the Shanghai of the time), overall the movie was just rotten. Besides the issues already mentioned, the humor only rarely lands, the action became more overblown while filmed poorly-to think I was actually begging for the competency of a Stephen Sommers-where the talents of Jet Li and (especially) Michelle Yeoh was misused… in hindsight, unless it was imperative to inform everyone that this movie reeks for the first-time viewer and likely does if you’ve tackled it before, or you want to see Wu Jing in a small part years before he became a superstar in the Pacific Rim Asian region, it’s best to not bother with Tomb.