The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Release Date: August 1st, 2008

Click here for The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor Trailer.

Ah the Mummy.......one of my favorite action/adventure movies. The first one was great, totally original. The second was good too, good story and action with the right blend of humor. Then some years past and I see the preview for the third Mummy movie entitled "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor". Well naturally I was excited, really excited. I mean Brenden Fraser, mummys, action and when I finally get the movie and watch it I'm filled with disappointment. Which really sucked for me because I had good expectations.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor stars Brendan Fraser as adventurer Rick O'Connell who has done his fair share in mummy disposal. O'Connell and his wife are done with their adventurer days while their son Alex is off excavating mummies of his own. Everything seems okay until the O'Connels are asked to transport a priceless artifact from England to China. While enroute they run into their son and Uncle Jonathon and things get hairy. A Chinese general attempts to steal the artifact and use it to release an acient chinese emperor played by Jet Li. Once again it is the whole O'Connell family aided by the two guardians of a fountain of youth type relic to save the world from ultimate destruction.

My first and foremost problem with this movie is that the character of Evelyn O'Connell is not played by previous actress Rachel Weisz but is instead portrayed by Maria Bello. I absolutley hate it when they have different actors play the same characters in movie installments. It takes away from the previous relationship made with the audience. Secondly, I did not think that Bello had the same spark that Weisz did. Weisz did a much better job as the goofy librarian that is transformed into the hardened adventurer. Another fault in the movie was the fact that Jet Li, whom I was excited to see in the movie, wasn't actually in the movie. For most of the film Li's character was computer generated as a stone statue that walked. It was essentially Li's body covered in stone. Only at the end of the movie did Li have flesh and bone. The acting of the son's character played by Luke Ford was a so-so performance. Evy O'Connell is British and speaks with a heavy british accent and Rick O'Connell is a full blooded American; Alex, naturally, would formulate to one specific accent, english or british. However, Alex did not. He seemed to slide from one accent to the other never really settleing on one.

On a positive note, the movie did have good action sequences. The fighting was well coreagraphed and the mummies did look good. Overall this was an okay movie, one I would probably watch again, but not over and over again like I do the first two, but still worth a rewatch. But it did lack the spice the original two did. I give The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor 7 Chinese Mummies out of 10