I waited… because of all the negative reviews… and I waited a little longer to finally see “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”, the 3rd movie chronologically in this franchise, unless you count the two prequels, which get worse as you go further back… needless to say this franchise should have stopped at “The Mummy Returns” (2001)… because this was predictable, formulaic, more corny, and missing the great cast members that left.

I wish I didn’t have to add disclaimers, but in case you didn’t know I loved the first two movies in this franchise… because the characters were great and the villains were great and the stories were good… but this one became more of a plug and play formula of the first two that just became overly predictable and disappointing.
 I always try not to “believe the hype”… or the opposite… but this movie really fell short of the expectations started by the first two “Mummy” movies.

Brendan Fraser is right on again as Rick O’Connell and John Hannah is good again as Rick’s brother-in-law Jonathan, and Michelle Yeoh adds credibility as one of the good guys, but the rest of the cast is shaky at best.

Maria Bello is a good actress, but she dyed her hair brown and spent the entire movie trying to make you forget she was replacing Rachael Weisz, who played “Evy” in the first two movies.

This is a great of example of what happens when an integral cast member doesn’t return in a sequel, but the producers re-cast the same character.  In this case, your lead actress is replaced, with some attempted trickery like you wouldn’t notice.

Another franchise that loses luster for replacing an integral character is “Terminator” when John Connor is played by 3 different actors (4 if you count the FOX TV show)…. in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991) Edward Furlong plays the young John Connor, in “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” (2003) its Nick Stahl playing John, and in this summer’s “Terminator Salvation”, it will be Christian Bale playing the lead.  Yes, there’s an age difference, but all the actors are so different… aging is one thing, but when people look and act different, its a problem.

Off the top of my head, only 2 movie franchises have successfully replaced an integral character with a different actor… .. they are “Star Wars” and ”Back to the Future”.

In the “Back to the Future” franchise, Jeffrey Weissman replaced Crispin Glover as Marty’s dad George McFly for “Back to the Future Part II” (1989) and “Back to the Future Part III” (1990).   What worked for this franchise that didn’t for others is that they limited the face shots of the character and in the case of “Back to the Future Part II”, George McFly is upside down for his scene in the movie, except when they go back in time and use clips from the original or use shots from behind to hide his face.

In “Star Wars”, Anakin Skywalker is played by 5 actors… Jake Lloyd plays the young Anakin in “Phantom Menace” (1999), its Hayden Christensen in “Attack of the Clones” (2002) and “Revenge of the Sith” (2005), David Prowse inside the suit and James Earl Jones as the voice of Vader for “A New Hope” (1977), “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), and “Return of the Jedi” (1983), and for the bonus points: Sebastian Shaw when Vader’s helmet comes off/the ghost of Anakin in ”Return of the Jedi” (1983).   But its all acceptable here as well because the major casting changes occur much later in life when he’s Darth Vader in the suit.

Okay, that was a bit of a detour, but the point is… its a DISTRACTION when a franchise replaces a character with a different actor or actress…. and at the same time, “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” adds so many new faces as well… an older actor playing Rick and Evy’s son Alex, a new “professor”, a new cultural warrior to help them (Oded Fehr played the Medjai warrior Ardeth Bey in the first two movies), and a new villian to stop (Arnold Vosloo played the mummy Imhotep in the first two).

Sure, after seven years, its hard to keep the same cast… but take a page from “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”… one of the things they got right was to accept that 19 years later Sean Connery (Henry Jones), Denholm Elliott (Dr. Marcus Brody), and John Rhys-Davies (Sallah).. would not be back for this movie… in fact, they make a quick mention about two of them in Indy 4.

Beyond the casting concerns, this “Mummy” movie is cornier, doesn’t have the same chemistry (see above), the villian played by Jet Li does more facial communication that actual lines of dialogue, and it felt like more of a rip-off from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, when the main character needs to be healed by a legendary mystical force.

THE BOTTOM LINE: This is not the Mummy movies we all loved… I give it a generous 5.5 out of 10, because the story is entertaining, even if it is predictably following the standard mummy storyline: Rick and Evy living out their lives, crisis arises, they are pulled into crisis, scammed by old scholar man, meet up with cultural warrior devoted to protecting world from the mummy, and join forces to stop the mummy from destroying the world.  Yeah.. its that predictable.   So its a generous 5.5.   Now stop making any more movies in this franchise… let it go.

 ”The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”

(2008) (rated: PG-13 for adventure action and violence)
(1 hr, 52 min)

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, John Hannah, Michelle Yeoh, Luke Ford, Isabella Leong, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Russell Wong, Liam Cunningham, David Calder

Director: Rob Cohen

Genre: Action/Adventure

The Plot: In the Far East, Alex O’Connell, the son of famed mummy fighters Rick and Evy O’Connell, unearths the mummy of the first Emperor of Qin — a shape-shifting entity cursed by a witch centuries ago.

So what did you think?  Please post a comment!

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“The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” poster courtesy Universal Pictures

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