The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (2008)

The third instalment in this particular selection of Mummy-centric tales, focusing on heroic Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) and his family, is pretty much what you'd expect it to be, considering the turnaround behind the cameras. It's now Rob Cohen directing, and the writing duties have been taken over by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, but the central concept is still all about someone wanting to come back from the dead and take his place as a beloved warrior and leader. 

There's an opening sequence that explains who the new villain is this time around, the titular Dragon Emperor (played by Jet Li), and then it's time to catch up with the O'Connells once again. Rick is sort of content, but also kind of bored, while Evelyn (Maria Bello replacing Rachel Weisz in the role) seems to be just fine about a life where she's not being put in mortal danger every so often. Or maybe she's just better at keeping up a pretence. Young Alex (Luke Ford) is now old enough to be gallivanting about on his own adventures, which is why he is in Shanghai, as is his uncle, Jonathan (John Hannah). The whole O'Connell family soon ends up in Shanghai, and they end up having to work hard to stop the resurrected Emperor from becoming immortal.

Fraser, Li, Bello, Hannah, Michelle Yeoh, and Isabella Leong, and even Liam Cunningham, all do pretty good here, in relation to the script that they have to work with. It's a messy film that wants to recapture the spectacle of the previous movies without slavishly repeating any of the set-pieces, but it ends up falling flat. I'll put a small part of the blame for that on Ford, playing the youngest of the O'Connell clan. Whether it's a weak script that he can't overcome or just his own inability to emanate any sense of real charisma, Ford is the least of the cast members onscreen here, and that is a problem exacerbated by the way in which his character is foisted upon us as if he could somehow become a natural successor to Fraser's character. I'm maybe being a bit unfair to Ford here. He's certainly not terrible, but he cannot overcome the failings of the script in the same way that everyone else can, because we already know, and already like, most of the other main players.

Gough and Millar obviously wanted to work with a certain structure, but also wanted to keep things at a certain distance from the previous two movies. They want to deliver a nice, comforting, helping of filmic fun that is the same . . . but different. Unfortunately, they completely forget to add the actual fun. Even the fact that the villain doesn't really have any seriously misguided motive for his actions, other than his selfishness, brings everything down a notch. You don't watch this movie for the script, or direction. You watch it to enjoy some of the stars, mainly Li and an underused Yeoh.

Cohen can be a dependable pair of hands for this sort of thing, but he doesn't seem to have any enthusiasm for this story. The plotting has a number of predictable moments you have to trudge through, the set-pieces have their entertainment factor hidden by horrible CGI and cack-handed editing, and any amusing calbacks to past events in the movie series just make you wish that you'd spent your time revisiting the previous films.

It’s a shame that this ended up being the end of this series (although there are a good number of separate The Scorpion King movies by now) because it almost turns the entire trilogy into a warning to others, perfectly illustrating the standard law of diminishing returns for this kind of stuff. I hope to never watch this again, but the completist in me is happy enough that I finally marked it off the list.

4/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

The Mummy (1999)

Hmmmm, I wonder why I had the urge to revisit this movie series after recently watching Jungle Cruise. Yes, the fact that Jungle Cruise reworked that formula so well put me in mood for some more entertainment in the same vein.

Brendan Fraser stars as Rick O'Connell (feeling for all the world like Rick Dangerous, a late '80s videogame creation based on a very well-known adventure icon). Rick is the daring, reluctant hero in Stephen Sommers' entertaining blockbuster centred around the titular creature of horror infamy and, for those not averse to bombastic fun, it ain't half bad. 

The plot sees Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Omid Djalili and others on their way to the legendary city of the dead, Hamunaptra, to find a significant treasure before anyone else (with the main competition being a party led by the sly Beni, played by Kevin J. O'Connor). And then someone accidentally wakes up Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) and everyone realises that there's more to fear in the desert than just sunstroke. 

There's nothing surprising here, nothing subtle and nothing all that believable but there is a fun action adventure with supernatural elements that should please many movie fans. Will it please fans of the old Universal classics (or even the Hammer versions)? Probably not, though it must be said that there ARE a lot of respectful little nods to past versions of the tale. Sommers directs with a focus on the sheer entertainment side of things, also emphasised in the script that he wrote, from the story worked on with Kevin Jarre and Lloyd Fonvielle.

Fraser and Weisz are two leads who fit perfectly in their roles, both very capable in different ways, and they are thrown from one set-piece to the next, with time spent here and there showing Vosloo's character growing in strength and powers. Nobody has to emote too strongly but everyone does a good enough job of acting beside the various practical and computer effects. We also get the likes of Oded Fehr, Jonathan Hyde and Erick Avari in the cast so there are at least some people on screen to do more than just run and fight stuff.

But never mind the acting anyway, there are booby traps, deadly scarab beetles and, of course, plagues - all rendered nicely enough, even if the pixel count gets uncomfortably high at times. This is a blockbuster,  and it delivers on that score. Maybe not quite the "Indiana Jones" for a new generation, it certainly tries hard with it's mix of thrills, humour and energetic action set-pieces. And the cherry on top is a typically appropriate score from Jerry Goldsmith.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.

It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA

Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Overboard (2018)

I tend to like Anna Faris. She's always amused me and I get the feeling that she never takes her success for granted. In fact, like many other actors, she seems to spend most of her time worried about being found out as an impostor. I remember hearing her say some years ago that Overboard (1987) was her favourite movie of all time, which made the news that it was being remade just slightly more bearable when I knew she was bagging one of the main roles. Unfortunately, nothing else here really works, and it certainly doesn't get anywhere near the sheer fun nature of the original.

Eugenio Derbez is the rich, rude, person this time around. He plays Leonardo Montenegro, and ends up overboard in the first act, of course. Faris is Kate Sullivan, a single mother struggling to make ends meet. Her only encounter with Leonardo ended in disaster, as he not only refused to pay her for her time but also threw her cleaning equipment into the water. Which helps to motivate Kate when the news displays Leonardo as someone who has washed ashore with no memory of who he is. She is now going to make him a hard-working husband and father, just long enough for her to feel she has been given what she is owed. Well...maybe a bit more.

Based on the original script by Leslie Dixon, this update cannot do enough to maintain enough laughs while also staying self-aware enough to acknowledge the problematic nature of the main premise. Bob Fisher and Rob Greenberg, who also directs, don't help. If it was anyone other than Faris in one of the main roles then this would have been unwatchable. As it is, it meanders along from start to finish, sprinkling occasional amusing lines in between moments that show the two leads finding a "surprising" connection that will have to be broken in time for the big finale.

It's no surprise to see that Greenberg has a filmography full of various TV projects. Overboard certainly feels like a TV movie that somehow managed to sneak into cinemas, the material so flat and lacklustre that it can't even be saved by supporting turns from Swoosie Kurtz and Eva Longoria (who are, frankly, standouts in a supporting cast that is missing a required injection of personality, although John Hannah also does a decent job).

But the biggest lack of personality is felt whenever Derbez is onscreen. I didn't think I was overly familiar with the filmography of Derbez but it turns out that I have seen a number of films that have had him there, in supporting roles, and I have just never registered him. I was going to be charitable and consider the fact that Derbez wasn't used to comedy but it appears that most of his movie roles have been in comedies, making it more bewildering that he isn't any better here. He's lucky to be working alongside Faris, who carries the whole movie along the track and over the finish line, thanks to her sheer force of will and personality. And the child actors all do well too, I shouldn't forget about them.

This was always going to be a difficult film to remake, especially at a time when it is much more difficult to overlook the many egregious behaviours and stereotypes that are often seen in romantic comedies, but there's no excuse for delivering something THIS bland.

3/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy the movie here.