- When I saw 1999's The Mummy, I found it to be a pleasant surprise. While nobody would mistake it for a great film, director Stephen Summers got a lot of action and fun out of a concept that stretched back...well, thousands of years. The Mummy also had better visual effects and, in particular, human-CGI interaction than any film I had seen up to that point, which I incorrectly hoped would bode well for the then-forthcoming return to the Star Wars universe. But that was back in 1999. Ten years, one sequel, one offshoot, and one director (Rob Cohen) later, we arrive at The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
- Whatever else may have changed in the past ten years, Brendan Fraser looks exactly the same, and he's still playing a gallant mummy-hunter named Rick O'Connell. Bored with their pseudo-retirement, Rick and his Egyptologist wife Evelyn (Maria Bello) take a trip to Shanghai to drop in on their son, Alex (Luke Ford), who is also in the mummy business. Alex has recently discovered the tomb of the long-dead Chinese Dragon Emperor (Jet Li) who, as the prologue illustrates, was not nice even by mummy standards. Of course, mummies in these films never stay dead for long, and soon the Dragon Emperor is tearing around Shanghai with the assistance of a desperate Chinese General named Yang (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang). Fortunately, the O'Connells have on their side Evelyn's ever-present brother (John Hannah) and, more helpfully, a taciturn warrior named Lin (Isabella Leong) who possesses a magical dagger that will render the Dragon Emperor really most sincerely dead.
- While it's good to see that Egypt doesn't have a complete monopoly on cursed ancient patrons, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is, true to its settings, a very yin yang experience. For every clever innovation, like the unexpectedly heroic entrance of the yeti, there is a trite disappointment, like the generic CGI that completely obscures Jet Li's presence the film. For every impressive rendering of the Great Wall, we get a dull glimpse of the supposedly Utopian Shangri-La, and an inspired set of terra-cotta warriors faces off against a boring army of the dead cribbed from The Return of the King or, more likely, one of the earlier Mummy films. Similarly, the casting of Michelle Yeoh as the witch who cursed the Dragon Emperor gives the story some much-needed gravitas that is immediately counterbalanced by the unfortunate substitution of Bello for the more charismatic Rachel Weisz. Although the film is a definite step up from the completely uncompelling Scorpion King, we'll see whether its shortcomings inspire Mummy 4 to dig up something new.
- By my count, Rob Cohen has directed 9 films, 3 of which contain the word "Dragon" in the title. And three episodes of Miami Vice.
