The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Starring:
Brendan Fraser
Maria Bello
Jet Li
Michelle Yeoh

Written by:
Alfred Gough
Miles Millar

Directed by:
Rob Cohen

First of all, let me introduce myself, my name is Jesse, and I like movies. I will weigh in from time to time on some of the movies I see if Jones himself has not already done the honors.

Now, introductions aside, I recently went to see The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. This is the third installment of this franchise (although some may disagree with that statement). This time around our hero, battles against a new foe, an ancient and ruthless Chinese Emperor who has been re-awaken. Familiar faces such as Brendan Fraser and John Hannah return. All new this time is Jet Li as the new Mummy, Michelle Yeoh as his immortal foe, and Luke Ford as the O'Connells' son who is now much older since we last saw him. Maria Bello steps in this time around as the character of Evelyn originally played by Rachel Weisz. Unfortunately this was the worst decision. Maria would have done well as a new character, but placing her as Evey was just not believable to me and I found my brain really reaching to be convinced that this was the same person.

Unfairly though, I am a sucker for an action\adventure movie. And the action and adventure scenes in this movie were done really well and I can see that they spent a lot of time on them. Also, the new setting and new mummy are a refreshing change to the series and was a step in the right direction. Jet Li does well in his role, but is seen very little as most of the time he is in other, unhuman, forms. The ancient backstory behind the Emperor, his General, and their love interest was fun to get lost in, but was incredibly similiar to that of the original Mummy, just placed in reverse as to who betrayed who. Also, once again you find forces trying to resurrect an ancient army to conquer the world, that being familiar to the second Mummy movie. So in all, the story was rather unoriginal.

The jokes were mediocre, and the love story was rather silly. You do find a second romance brewing in this version, which means they could have easily dropped the Evelyn character, as I believe they should have. But in all, I did find this move enjoyable to see. If you like action with a little bit of science fiction, and you like the other movies in the Mummy franchise, you will probably still like this movie.

I would give it a 6.5 out of 10.