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The Mummy – Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: Open with Extreme Caution

Yep, I have no idea where his front foot is either. It’s mummy magic.

Movies are almost synonymous with one type of food; popcorn. Summertime is equally synonymous with one kind of movie; popcorn cinema. This would be the type of movie where you walk in, sit down with an overly large tub of possibly-buttered delight in your lap and shut the brain off. Just watch the action, be wowed by the explosions and chuckle at the one-liners you would only joke about, but never believe you would actually hear someone say on screen. Now it may sound like I’m mocking these flicks, but I’m not at all, we eat these up with both hands every year and this summer is no different. How do you think Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull made such a ridiculous amount of money? So, tonight I bore witness to another lasting franchise in the candy coated adventure world and it’s new arrival, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

The first two movies were helmed by franchise creator Steven Sommers, but this time the reins were handed over to another Universal Studios master-at-arms, Rob Cohen. Rob is no stranger to the multi-sequeled storyline, but usually he’s at the front of it instead of coming in during round three. He launched such franchises as The Fast and the Furious, xXx and The Skulls. He also directed one of the more stand out martial arts movies of the early 1990′s, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. With all those credits on his rap sheet, you’d figure this project would be akin to giving a professional conductor one of Beethoven’s classics, a walk in the park. Yet this stroll down popcorn lane proved to be a more windy road than imagined.

The story takes place many years after the last chapter and Rick and Evie’s son, Alex has taken on the family business of digging up and uncovering the most dangerous of mummified enemies. This new foe happens to be an ancient Chinese emperor who once controlled the five elements and tried to take over the world, which seems to be a bit of a habit for these mummies. Once he is reawakened, the ride begins and we are off once again, racing around the continent to try and stop him from becoming completely immortal. The basic premise works and personally I was glad to move the location out of Egypt, since I felt they had played that tune as long as they could. Yet once you move below the basic storyline, all the connecting points seem to fall apart. I’m a huge supporter in the “willing suspension of disbelief”, which we all need to fully enjoy any movie, but this suspension was pulled just a few hairs past the limit. So many things take place which are never explained, never set up and sometimes never paid off. Once the momentum really got moving, every other scene was spent trying to figure out how we got there and what was going on. It had a little taste of Wanted, which also jumped absolutely huge logic holes for the sake of making something look cool on screen, but that film, under the insane vision of Timur Bekmambetov, pulled it off much better.

As for casting, back in the day this was going to be the bread and butter of Brendan Fraser’s career (who plays our dashing hero and young Indiana Jones homage, Rick O’Connell), but since the first movie I haven’t felt that same magic from his performance. Ever since then it has all felt like a shadow or almost a parody of the moments he created in the original. Also, in the first two he starred alongside Rachel Weisz, but she didn’t return to the sand and savagery this time and the studios were forced to either write her out or replace her. They chose the latter. In comes Maria Bello as Evie O’Connell, the spunky and adventurous librarian-cum-swashbuckler. I think Maria is a fantastic actress and I was wildly supportive of her turn in A History of Violence, but this was not a good fit for her. Her action scenes felt forced and overly silly, on top of her accent sliding in, out and completely off the British continent. From the original chapters, the only person to bring the exact same level, for better or for worse, was John Hannah, as Evie’s charmingly opportunistic brother, Jonathan. New to this series was Michelle Yeoh, an immortal witch hoping to stop the Dragon Emperor, and Jet Li as the Emperor himself. Michelle was fairly strong in her performance, but Jet Li spent most of the movie walking around as an animated Terra Cotta statue, so it’s a little hard to criticize any lack of emotion from the part.

It can be argued that acting skills and story structure have nothing to do with popcorn cinema, it is all about the special effects. We are there for the glitz, the glamor and the wonderment of things we have never seen before on screen. Unfortunately this visual extravaganza didn’t break down any walls in that realm. The statue effect on Jet Li’s character skipped back and forth between impressive and amateurish, while the practical effects and explosions failed to really pop the eyes open of the audience. The one thing standing out amongst the crowd was the Yeti creatures (don’t ask how or why they appeared, just let that one go). These imagined visualizations of the abominable snowmen provided not only some much needed freshness to the flick, but some decent comedy as well. Numerous times there was laughter peeling through the audience, but half of it was laughing alongside the movie, while the rest was laughing at it. Big difference, same result: entertainment. As many problems as this does have, I can’t say I walked out unamused. The plot holes and logic issues leave the script looking like a well used target down at the local gun range, but the jokes were plentiful and they kept coming until you gave in and laughed.

Recommendation: As I’ve said before, this is an action movie, so it can only be helped by seeing it on the big screen, but on this occassion I might just suggest waiting for TV distribution and sitting really, really close to the set.

p.s. I was once again reminded about why I choose to go to the Arclight Cinemas as much as possible. Tonight they gave out posters signed by Rob Cohen to people sitting in random seat numbers. Plus, if that wasn’t enough of a bonus for the night, Rob Cohen himself was there to introduce the movie. He mentioned that he made the movie for us, the fans, the general public, and not for the critics and bloggers (like myself). He said it’s about sheer entrainment, so whether you think it’s good or it’s bad, if you laugh at it during any point, his job is done. For me the job was done, but it might not have been the job he intended.

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Journey to the Center of the Earth: A 1,2,3-D Trick Pony

Are they still here? — I think so…—Are they awake?—I don’t know, you poke them!

In every summer there are those movies which arrive in your closest multiplex and you know the only reason to see them is to shut off your brain and look at all the pretty moving pictures. The special effects driven popcorn films are not meant to move the soul, deepen your understanding of the universe or make your heart go pitter-patter (although drop a few attractive people into the cast and you’ll at least get the pitter, maybe not the patter). Although it might seem like I’m talking down to these movies, I am most certainly not. We need them as much as we need all the others. We need to be able to walk into those darkened halls of cinematic experiences and let everything go, not be dragged through the emotional wringer, but calmly sit back and grin without even really understanding why we are. So, in that vein of movie making, we get the newest reincarnation of Journey to the Center of the Earth, and this time it’s in 3-D, ready to pop off the screen and into your box of Raisenettes.

Following closely enough to the original Jules Verne story, it details the journey of a small group as they travel down through a volcano into a world within the world. This time, they actually have a new piece of ammunition not previously available in earlier versions, the Jules Verne book itself. The story is contemporized by creating the idea that there is a semi-secret society of people who believe Verne didn’t really write the original story as much as transcribe it from real life experiences. Brendan Fraser plays our heroic professor who lost his brother ten years ago on an expedition and when those exact same geographic circumstances arrive once again, Brendan rushes off to see if he can gather clues as to what happened. Throwing a small wrench in the plan is his nephew, played by Josh Hutcherson (previously seen in RV, Zathura and Bridge to Terabithia), who gets dropped off to spend some quality time with his rarely seen uncle. The cast is rounded out by their deceptively skilled mountain guide played by Anita Briem (previously seen in Showtime’s The Tudors), which combined with Brendan helped bring about some pitter or patter for both sides of the audience.

Not expecting there to be much going on storywise, I wasn’t disappointed. Everything plays along a pretty straight line and even the laziest in the crowd could call all the shots well before they arrived, but we weren’t really there for that. We wanted to be wowed, amazed, transfixed by the new Real 3-D technology and feel the sensation of being enveloped in this mystical world. How did that work out? About 50-50. The 3-D effects we’ve been raised on mostly deal with things poking out of the screen at you, looking like they’re going to rub up against your cheek, giving you that unconscious tingle up your spine, but that mostly happened early on in the film and felt extremely forced. There is a visual tool presented quickly with a yo-yo that Josh plays with, but his constant winging of the old fashioned toy out into the audience caused not a single “ooh” or “ahh”. Saving some of the magic we were expecting is not what comes out of the screen, but what goes into it. The Real 3-D technology really shows its chops during expansive scenery shots where you can really see and feel the depth of the world on screen. The movie at that moment transforms into a window that more than ever you feel like you could just reach through and touch the rivers, streams and, not my personal recommendation, the lava flowing right on the other side. During those moments I was actually impressed with how far we’ve come in the 3-D space since Jaws 3 (but don’t ask me to see that one again, screaming like a girl once in a crowd was enough for me).

No matter how many special effects you toss at a crowd, we still need to be drawn into the movie by the characters and the actors portraying them. Josh and Anita both bring there own special something to their roles, but we all knew going in that this all rested on the well tempered shoulders of Brendan Fraser. He has become a poster boy for the wide-eyed, pure hearted hero who always finds himself in situations way beyond his comprehension. I give him full merits, he does those roles well, starting from his first major role in Encino Man through George of the Jungle, Blast From the Past, and of course, the Mummy trilogy. My only worry is in this film it’s starting to play a little thin. The same delivery, the same determined stare, it all rings way too familiar now and begins to seem like he has nothing else to give. I don’t believe he’s done showing his strengths yet as an actor, but to get some of that credibility back I think he needs to show his skills as he did in School Ties and Gods and Monsters. He is truly one of the few people who can transition from the big budget action genre into the indie drama space, but I would just like to see him do it more often.

The final verdict, since it is a 3-D film, if it has any chance of entertaining you it will have to be on the big screen, so don’t bother waiting for DVD, unless you have a sweet home entertainment setup. If that’s the case, tell me when to show up. I’ll bring the Raisenettes.

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