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Topic: The Mummy : Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
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Stu Jamieson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 524
From: Buccan, Qld, Australia
Registered: Jan 2008
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posted 09-13-2008 11:02 PM
Running afoul of a love triangle, ancient Chinese Emperor Han (Jet Li) is turned to stone by sorceress, Zi Juan (Michelle Yeoh), and his plan for world domination and immortality are thwarted. 2000 years later, bad people mean to lift the curse which would allow Emperor Han to enslave all of mankind with the help of his terracotta militia armed with ancient pre-Christian weaponry. (Good luck with that!) Enter retired adventurers and Indiana Jones wannabes, Rick and Evelyn O'Connell (Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello, respectively). The pair are enduring a loathesomely comfortable English aristocratic lifestyle when approached by the British government to undertake "just one more job" - to courier an ancient Chinese relic with the power of resurrection back to its country of origin. Naturally the artefact falls into the wrong hands and the O'Connells have another mummy to despatch.
Like the second film in this series (and to a lesser extent the first film) Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor is an exercise in what Hollywood does badly and nowhere is this more evident than in its frustrating lack of attention to detail: a sword swipe through a row of candles results in a zigzag cut; the antagonist is turned to stone only to be found a couple of millennia later in a completely different pose to that in which he was frozen. Certainly these are small details in the overall scheme of things but it is exactly this which makes it all the more annoying. It's almost harder to get these tiny details wrong than it is to just get them right and it reflects a Hollywood laziness which typifies the entire production.
Performances are solidly patchy. Maria Bello attempts to prove that a whole character can be embodied solely within an accent and fails. Putting so much effort into getting her English-toff accent right, she leaves little energy for fleshing out her character, lacking completely the earthy charm brought to the role by genuine ol' Blighty actress, Rachel Weisz (who wisely opted out of this production). Brendan Fraser remains a reasonable action hero in search of a better vehicle (perhaps he will fare better in Journey To The Centre Of The Earth 3D but initial reports are not promising). Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh provide a level of statesmanship beyond the worth of this film. And O'Connell Jnr. (Luke Ford) is so uncommitted to this project that he can't even bung on an English accent to maintain canon with the rest of the production (English accents must be so uncool with the young folk).
This is a by-the-numbers action adventure reciting a special-effects-over-substance mantra and while $145M worth of entertainment for 15 bucks can't be all bad, the money could have been better spent.
5 out of 10
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