Release Date:
Friday, August 1, 2008
Directed by: Rob Cohen
The Skinny: Egyptian-mummy vanquishers Rick and Evelyn O'Connell (Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello, who takes over for Rachel Weisz) are adjusting to retirement living after leaving the globe-trotting adventure game. Too bad their son, Alex (Luke Ford), has gone and woken up a Chinese mummy (Jet Li) set on re-conquering the world.
The Good: As it promised, the movie tries its best to cram in as much cool shit as possible—we're talking ninjas, dragons, mummies, zombies, witches, Yetis, fireworks, you name it. So you can't accuse it of being lazy.
The Bad: For the third installment in a franchise, its characters appear to have regressed instead of grown. In every scene, it feels like they're all meeting for the first time, and matters aren't helped by Bello's god-awful English accent. Plus the action scenes move along as if the movie is simply trying to unlock achievement points rather than tell a story. "Oh, you've beaten the Shangri-La level? Let's move to Great Wall level..." etc., etc.
Yeti Night Football? The other major downside to Mummy 3 is its alleged sense of "humor." Every joke should end with a "wackity-smackity-doo," especially the notion that giant Abominable Snowmen from the Himalayas would kick a Chinese soldier through a gate and then raise their arms like NFL referees.
Theater, DVD, or TNT in Five Years? This one is solely for Fraserheads.
The Skinny: Egyptian-mummy vanquishers Rick and Evelyn O'Connell (Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello, who takes over for Rachel Weisz) are adjusting to retirement living after leaving the globe-trotting adventure game. Too bad their son, Alex (Luke Ford), has gone and woken up a Chinese mummy (Jet Li) set on re-conquering the world.
The Good: As it promised, the movie tries its best to cram in as much cool shit as possible—we're talking ninjas, dragons, mummies, zombies, witches, Yetis, fireworks, you name it. So you can't accuse it of being lazy.
The Bad: For the third installment in a franchise, its characters appear to have regressed instead of grown. In every scene, it feels like they're all meeting for the first time, and matters aren't helped by Bello's god-awful English accent. Plus the action scenes move along as if the movie is simply trying to unlock achievement points rather than tell a story. "Oh, you've beaten the Shangri-La level? Let's move to Great Wall level..." etc., etc.
Yeti Night Football? The other major downside to Mummy 3 is its alleged sense of "humor." Every joke should end with a "wackity-smackity-doo," especially the notion that giant Abominable Snowmen from the Himalayas would kick a Chinese soldier through a gate and then raise their arms like NFL referees.
Theater, DVD, or TNT in Five Years? This one is solely for Fraserheads.