The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Venue: The Mall Cinema, Gadong

Show: 9.40 pm screening

Snacks: Orbit whitening chewing gum?

The third instalment of "The Mummy" franchise opened this week, to be honest i wouldn't say that i'm a big fan, but i will admit that the first two movies and the "Scorpion King" spin-off were fun and pretty enjoyable. I do have to say say that this movie is THE type of family movie to bring the kids to go and watch as was evident by the number of toddlers and little kids in the cinema during the movie, but thankfully, they weren't being restless and noisy, which i guess goes to show you that kids will be entertained by this movie, thankfully for the duration of the entire movie.

The movie still stars Brendan Fraser (in his second family adventure movie of the summer) as Rick O'Connell, Jet Li as the Emperor, Maria Bello as Evelyn O'Connell (Yup it sucks not having Rachel Weisz, (Dato) Michelle Yeoh as Zi Juan, John Hannah as Jonathan, Luke Ford as Alex O'Connell (the son all grown up now!), Isabella Leong as Lin (Hot!) and Anthony Wong as General Yang (Hong Kong Heavyweight Legend from Infernal Affairs and Initial D among other movies). The movie was directed by Rob Cohen (he of "The Fast and the Furious" and "Stealth" fame).

Honestly, when i saw the trailer for this movie, i wasn't too impressed, firstly i don't really dig Rob Cohen as a director (more style than substance), secondly i was a bit put off by the whole "China" theme, i guess i'm a bit bored of "Chinese Epics" and anything vaguely similar, and lastly, NO RACHEL WEISZ!, she dropped out of the movie apparently due to problems with the script.... Haha, i guess that tells you something else about the movie eh?

The movie opens up with Rick and Evy enjoying their 'settled' life, away from all the action and adventure, peaceful and homely, but evidently boring and lacking excitement. I'm not quite sure how old they're meant to be in this movie, but by the looks of the son, who's supposed to be 20ish?, i'm guessing they're supposed to be at least on the wrong side of 40?. I have to point out that the dude playing the kid looked a bit too old for the part, and everytime he was on screen and spoke, i kept thinking of how much he reminded me of Johnny Knoxville!. Anyway, the O'Connells are 'persuaded' into going on one last 'mission' to return an artifact to the Chinese Government, where they bump into their son, who's dropped out of yet another college and seems to have followed in his parents footsteps as an archaeologist/tomb raider. As you can guess things don't go according to plan, and somehow a mummy is raised, this time in the form of Jet Li. The rest of the movie is basically about how they have to stop Jet Li from gaining his full strength and raising his army.

George of the Jungle was still trying to get used to swinging without vines

I thought the movie was so-so, i didn't think it was rubbish but i don't believe that it will leave viewers with a lasting memory of the movie, the storyline was alright, i guess that since the winning 'formula' of the first two movies worked, "why fix it when it ain't broke" right?. Wrong. I believe that they really should've tried to introduce something new to this movie and the franchise, i'm not quite sure what, but it all seemed a bit 'too formulaic'. I guess the problem is that with the recent summer blockbusters like "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man" blowing my (and i'm sure most viewers) expectations, i guess this movie was always gonna be a downer in comparison. However, having said that i guess it is unfair to compare this movie to the other movies this summer, so viewers should just compare it to the previous "Mummy" movies.

Some people have said that there was too much CGI in this movie, but i have to argue that it's a movie about mummies, how can there NOT be enough CGI? But i guess what they really meant is that it all looked TOO CGI, and i guess that some people may have wanted it to look more 'realistic'?. I think that yes, perhaps they could have made the movie look more 'real', somehow the CGI gave the movie a too 'cartoony' feel, especially when Jet Li transforms into all the different creatures. That said, i do have to say, you'd think that a guy with all this power, who could transform into any creature or monster that he wanted, could he really get beaten by a bunch of adventurers?. The movie did have its enjoyable moments, fight scenes with Jet Li do always kick ass. Another plus point for the movie was that despite the lack of Rachel Weisz (and her chemistry with Brendan Fraser in the movie), we do get Isabella Leong.

Isabella Leong = Yummy in "The Mummy: Tomb yada yada yada....

Rating: 3/5

Last Say:

Not bad, not great either, a movie that you should just enjoy for the whole adventure theme, i'd say that this movie was probably as good as Indie 4, thank god that this movie didn't have aliens in it, or the rating would have dropped to 1/5.

Switch off and enjoy.