This is the third in the mummy film franchise, and the fourth if you count the "Scorpion King" spin-off starring former wrestler The Rock. But actually, there are no mummies in this movie. The main villain, a long-dead, megalomaniacal Chinese emperor (Jet Li), is more of a statue than a mummy.
Also missing is Rachel Weisz, a stalwart from the previous two movies. This is particularly ominous once you learn the reason why: she turned down the script.
And that's the root of the problem: this film is badly written. The characters are not believably developed; the jokes aren't funny; and the situations are a trite rehash of previous movies in the franchise, not to mention other movies in the genre. The film is just rubbish, and no number of CGI terracotta warriors can save it.
Rick and Evelyn O'Connell (Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello) are settling down to an idyllic mummy-free country life in England in 1946. We learn that during the war they had been working as spies. Meanwhile their son Alex (Luke Ford), who has an inexplicable American accent, is off in China searching for the lost tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
Centuries ago the Emperor's quest for immortality was foiled by a curse from a good witch, played by Michelle Yeoh. If he should ever awake, the Emperor will raise his army and conquer the world.
When Alex discovers the tomb and gets into trouble, the O'Connells travel to China to rescue him. The evil Emperor is awake and searching for a way to lift the curse that keeps him imprisoned in rock. A nationalist general called Yang (celebrated Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong in his first major Hollywood movie) helps him in his quest. The O'Connells are out to stop him in a race that spans the continent of Asia.
There may be enough in this movie to keep small children entertained. There's a fast-moving chase scene though the streets of Shanghai. There is a battle involving Yetis. Our heroes visit Shangri-La, which looks terrific 's a paradise where the fountain of eternal youth springs but curiously there don't seem to be any people. Most fun of all is the climatic last battle between an army of the undead and the aforementioned terracotta warriors.
But none of it seems to work, because the director is painting by numbers. It was as though Rob Cohen and his team was thinking, "There was a chase scene at this point in the previous two movies, so let's put another one here in this one," without giving any thought to how an action sequence would advance the plot.
Frankly the action sequences were not only dull and trite, but confusing. In the chase scenes in particular, the camera moved around so much that it was hard to work out what was going on.
Some of the characters felt like extra baggage. It seemed the only reason John Hannah was in the movie was because he was in the previous ones. He wasn't given much to do and his role as comic relief was seriously hampered by the fact that none of his lines were even remotely funny.
The film is bound to annoy the region's small Chinese community with the way that it messes around with Chinese culture and history and the frankly racist way it assumes that all Chinese people know kung fu. Jet Li wasn't given much to do either, which, as the main villain, is a serious oversight.
This film suffered from a serious case of miscasting. True, Weisz refused to come on board, but couldn't the producers have cast someone who had better chemistry with Fraser than Bello? Likewise, there was no chemistry at all between Foster and Ford. This was unfortunate because much of the attempt to tug at the emotional heartstrings of the audience was built around the family bonds of the main characters. In any case, surely the audience would have a hard time even believing that Ford (26 and looks it) could possible be a son of Fraser (39 and looks younger).
Though the Mummy franchise has always been an attempt to cash in on the success of similar movies, it was only with this movie that you can use the dreaded words that are true of so many movies, but which all film makers hate to hear: derivative drivel.
Now showing in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
