The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

Brenden Fraser has long been one of my favorite actors. No actor does big, goofy galoot, nearly as well as Fraser who has essayed roles as a caveman, as George of the Jungle and in the Mummy movies a 40's era action movie leading man. Often, even when the movie really stinks Fraser remains above the fray, a goofy, good time presence.

Unfortunately, even Fraser's good natured goofiness can't rescue the latest in the Mummy series, Tomb of the Dragon Emporer. By the end of this 2 hour slog even Fraser seems tired.

Rick O'Connell (Fraser) and his wife Evelyn (Maria Bello) have retired from the adventure business. After turning back the attack of the mummy Imhotep twice and even an encounter with the Scorpion King, Rick and Evy are in a welcome respite. At home in their stately manse in England they spend lazy days fishing, writing and being bored out of their minds.

Yes, they actually miss the days when they were risking their lives against supernatural forces and narrowly escaping death through cunning and guile. So, when a British official shows up asking them to return to duty to accompany an ancient artifact to China they leap at the chance. And, as luck would have it, Evy's brother John happens to have moved to Shanghai and opened a nightclub.

Meanwhile, Rick and Evy's son Alex (Luke Ford) happens to be in China discovering the lost tomb of the legendary Dragon Emporer (Jet Li). Unfortunately, after he makes his discovery, Luke gets double crossed and a group of military exiles take possession of the Emporer and set about restoring him to eternal life. Now, Luke and his parents must join forces with an ancient witch (Michelle Yeoh) and her daughter (Isabella Leong) to battle the resurrected dragon emporer and his army of terra cotta warriors.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emporer was directed by Rob Cohen with a tin ear for melodrama and big action. Listening to characters in this latest Mummy movie chat you get a painful series of scenes where characters state what just happened, what happens next or what will happen. It's the most perfunctory, irritating explication you can imagine.

When they aren't explaining things to us that we are already painfully aware of, characters are professing their feelings to each other with lunkheaded platitudes that would make the folks at Hallmark wretch.

Of course, you can't expect a Mummy movie to have great dialogue. You have to just hope going in that there won't be so much of it. Hopefully you get big action and effects scenes to drown out whatever waste of breath dialogue there may be. Stephen Sommers, who directed the first two Mummy movies, mastered the ability to put action and effects ahead of all else.

Unfortunately, Sommers is gone and replaced by Rob Cohen whose resume includes XXX and Stealth. Those films stink pretty bad but The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emporer manages to be even worse. On top of the horrendous dialogue and atrocious melodrama the action and effect of this Mummy sequel stink. Like digital Ed Wood characters, the digital armies of the dead look worse than most modern videogames and are a hell of a lot less interesting.

Compounding the problems is the grounding of Jet Li. Proming Li as the Dragon Emporer was a lie, his role is nothing more than a cameo. The dragon emporer is more often than not a dull special effect that hardly even looked like Jet Li. When Li does show up he is asked to actually act as opposed to leap about and do things we want Jet Li to do.

Final

As a third movie The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emporer had low expectations when it was completed and somehow manages to come in worse than those expectations. This is a tremendously bad movie that leaves little doubt why Oscar nominee Rachel Weisz rejected the idea of coming back to the role of Evy. With a script this bad and a director this inept it's a wonder this film attracted the onscreen talent it did.

I'm still a fan of Brenden Fraser and with the charming Journey To The Center of the earth in theaters, it's not to hard to forget Tomb of the Dragon Emporer. I just cannot forget it fast enough.