The past couple of years have brought us a great deal of sequels. Of course, 2008 has continued this trend, with very few new movies for us, the public to view.
Sad thing is, typically when you get sequels, they very rarely come close to the same quality as the original. Occasionally – let’s be honest, extremely rarely, will a sequel ever be better than the movie that spawned it.
And then we get the inevitable third movie, which more often than not closes the franchise. Sometimes the third movie in the series is good, but more often than not, it’s terrible.
A few prime examples are – Alien 3, Terminator 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, X-men 3… and the list goes on and on. Although a couple of these movies I didn’t mind, and lets face it, everyone’s taste is different, so my view won’t necessarily agree with yours – for the most part, the third movie is bad, if not downright terrible.
And then, like the elusive sequel that is BETTER than the original, you get a third movie that is pretty good, on par with the original.
Tonight, my son and I went to the premier of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I have to admit that I was quite sceptical, because of what I said above; you know the whole third movie being terrible thing.
I will gladly admit that I was quite wrong.
Ok, now it’s time for my usual disclaimer. I will not give away any spoilers for this movie, other than what you will have seen in trailers from the various sources. After all, I can write reviews that state what I like and dislike about a film without it sounding like it can be used to describe any movie out there.
I don’t do the generic reviews, after all. Sorry, I digress…
The third movie takes place in the mid 40’s, a few years after the end of the Second World War Evelyn and Rick have since retired from their adventures and are living a quite life.
Albeit a boring life.
Their son, Alex has since grown to manhood and has left home to study in university. However, he’s got too much of his father in his blood and he has grown up to be quite the adventurer.
His current escapades have him locating and uncovering the tomb of the legendary Chinese Emperor Han.
Of course, once this happens an ancient curse is broken and the Emperor awakens, and is read to pick up where he left off – conquering the known world.
Now, the movie has all the elements that made the original Mummy a success… humour, actors while portraying their respective roles don’t take themselves too seriously, and quite honestly, epic adventure.
Did I mention the humour? That was one of the best parts of the original Mummy. Sure, there was horror, but it was offset by genuine belly laughs. I will say this, and it’s not really a spoiler, but the humour wasn’t quite up to what I was expecting, but I did laugh numerous times during the movie. Don’t get me wrong here, I just didn’t find it quite as funny as the first!
I have to say that I missed Rachel Weisz – Evelyn was brought to life by her acting, and she left large shoes to fill when she couldn’t reprise her role. But, I have to admit that Maria Bello did a more than admiral job in filling those shoes.
I found that the chemistry between Rick and Evelyn was there, despite the fact that her character was played by a different actress.
Luke Ford was well cast as Alex O’Connell. I was very pleased to see an adult version of Rick and Evelyn’s offspring. On a side note, that was one of the things I didn’t like about the Mummy Returns – the introduction of the kid. Doing that has a habit of sinking a franchise.
In this case, by pushing the series forward a few years, turning the kid into an adult, well, it actually worked.
Jet Li was great as the villain in the movie, although once again, considering the fact that he’s one of my favourite Chinese actors, I would much prefer to see him play the hero. But every movie needs its antagonist, and he did a wonderful job portraying the Chinese Emperor.
Rounding out the cast were Michelle Yeoh, Russell Wong and John Hannah who reprised his role as Jonathan from the first two movies. It’s a shame that they couldn’t have brought back Oded Fehr… hopefully in a future instalment in this franchise he’ll be back.
The special effects were exactly what I expected, although I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that even after what – 8 years, the undead still looked too fake. Oh, and the undead were the source of quite a bit of humour in the movie, so watch what happens when they appear.
The Yeti and the Dragon though were pretty cool!
Overall it’ll do quite well and there will be a forth Mummy movie in the next couple of years. You’ll know where it takes place, as they give you a teaser just before the end credits start rolling.
3.5 out of 5.