If you don’t want to start from the beginning, this post gets really good at the 5th paragraph (aka I get in the zone).
Stephen Sommers directs movies. He is most widely known for directing The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. I’ll be honest with you when I say that I thoroughly enjoyed both movies. I love a good action-adventure story; I do not care how far-fetched the story is. Stephen’s grasp on storytelling might be minimal, but good lord can he do action. He’s like Michael Bay if Michael Bay went to film school.
The reason I wrote this blog is because I just grimaced through The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Stephen Sommers did not direct it, Rob Cohen did. It was absolutely god-awful. I wanted to enjoy it, I really did, but I couldn’t. I even tried to convince myself that having the story, with the title: The Mummy, take place in China could work. It did not, at all, whatsoever. Problem number one. The script. Who interprets the script? The director. I do not want to get ahead of myself so I will discuss the script first.It appears to be clever. Everyone knows about the terra-cotta army in China and so on and so forth. The problem is trying to expand the franchise into something that has absolutely nothing to do with…here it is…MUMMIES.
Mummies are from Egypt. Terra-cotta armies are from China. Big difference, huge difference. That is why the first two movies worked and, lest not forget, were so successful. I could write an entire new blog on the Box-office receipts of the first two films, unadjusted and adjusted for ticket inflation, but I will not do so here.
The script is why the movie sucked. Seems obvious, but you obviously do not understand Hollywood. Rob Cohen (the director) did what he could, God bless him, but he did a terrible job. Aside from having a Mummy story take place in China, they had Rachel Weisz replaced by Maria Bello. I wanted to shoot her and then shoot myself. She did not fit, at all. I am well aware that I was used to Rachel Weisz, therefore making it difficult to accept Maria Bello, but she was just annoying and God-awful. The other actors (Brendan Fraser and John Hannah) clearly needed some money and assumed that Rob Cohen would have a similar vision to Sommers.
Yetis. The stupid guardian of the Dragon Emperor (who is a terrible ninja, and a girl no less), is able to summon three Yetis in the Himalayas? I am about to shit inside of the cloth that resides upon the interior of my pant leg. Is she completely dense? Yetis are hairy…so she should just summon them, shave their bodies, and have THEM guard the Dragon Emperor. Then she can go to her stupid prom. If it gets too hot for the shaved Yetis, just plug in some freaking fans. The worst case scenario would be that they are hot and absolutely miserable so if any cocky archeologist thinks they are about to make some huge discovery and change history would ultimately be met by some pissed off hairless Yetis who want to literally disembowel EVERYTHING that comes before them. Problem solved. No more Paramilitary troops trying to find some dumbass gem to bring Jet-Li to life. The thought that three pissed of Yetis are guarding him is enough to find another profession. MOVIE OVER!
Oh wait…Rick has a dumbass son. This makes sense because he becomes interested in the dumbass guardian of the Dragon Emperor (still a girl, though I wouldn’t be surprised it it ’twere a man). Alex O’Connell is a smug little bitch who thinks he is above the law. He is. Wait, ok yeah he is kind of badass. Moving on… Alex is all like, “Dad, my guns are better.” and Rick O’Connell is all like, “Hey, son, shut up.” Case closed. And oh yeah, Alex just so happens to know Chinese (Ancient and Modern).
Let’s just say I did not like this movie. Also, I am tired of writing about it…I should really learn how to end a post because
dscarroll
