The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Plot synopsis:
In ancient China, Qin Shi Huang, a brutal and tyrannical warlord, unites the country's kingdoms into an empire and becomes The Dragon Emperor. He orders the construction of the Great Wall of China to bury and curse his dead enemies. The Emperor's mystics teach him supernatural mastery over the Five Elements. Years later, he begins to grow fearful that all he has accomplished will be lost upon his death. He hears of a sorceress, Zi Yuan, who is said to know the secret of immortality and sends his henchman, General Ming Guo, to bring her to the palace. When Ming finds her, they fall in love. After she seemingly casts a spell on the Emperor in Sanskrit, a language he does not understand, after discovering their love affair, and having feelings for her as well, has Ming executed and after she refuses his proposal, he stabs her. Revealing that she has foreseen these events, Zi Yuan immolates and detains the Emperor transforming his army into the Terracotta Army, and the sorceress flees.In 1946, archaeologist Alex O'Connell, Rick and Evelyn O'Connell's son, locates the Emperor's tomb with the financial backing of archaeology professor Roger Wilson. Three assistants are killed by booby traps and Alex is attacked by a mysterious woman, but succeeds in bringing the Emperor's coffin to Shanghai. Meanwhile, the British government entrusts the O'Connells to take the Eye of Shangri-La back to China. Wilson is actually a member of a rogue military faction led by General Yang and his deputy, Choi, who see the Emperor as the one who can restore order and greatness to China. The mysterious woman from the tomb, Lin, stabs the mummified body within the coffin and discovers it is a decoy. By accident, the magical fluid within the Eye lands on the statue of the carriage driver, revealing itself to be the Emperor's actual body. The Emperor is revived, trapped in his terracotta undead form. He accepts Yang and Choi's service but kills Wilson. Lin attempts to kill the Emperor with a magical dagger, the only weapon that can destroy him.Along with Evelyn's brother Jonathan Carnahan, who owns a Shanghai nightclub named Imhotep's, the O'Connells and Lin travel to a stupa in the Himalayas that will reveal the path to Shangri-La when the Eye is placed on top of it. With the help of Yetis summoned by Lin, the group hold off Yang's soldiers but the Emperor discovers Shangri-La's location. While attempting to trigger an avalanche with a thrown grenade attached to some dynamite, Alex fails to notice the Emperor throwing a dagger at his back. Rick shoves his son to safety and ends up with a mortal stab wound to the chest. Lin takes everyone to Shangri-La where the sorceress heals Rick's wound. The group discovers that Lin is Zi Yuan's 2000-year-old daughter, both rendered immortal due to the power of Shangri-La's waters. The magical dagger which Lin carries is the same dagger that the Emperor used in his attempt to kill Zi Yuan years earlier. Zi Yuan also reveals that she would have died if the Yetis had not saved her, and warns Alex that if the Emperor is allowed to drink from the Pool of Eternal Life, he will not only be able to raise his army, but be granted the power to transform into ancient and fearsome Chinese animal spirits. Alex and Lin have grown attached to each other, but Lin pushes the relationship away due to her immortality; after watching Zi Yuan mourn General Ming for centuries, she does not know if she can bear falling in love with Alex only to watch him grow old and die.The Emperor eventually arrives and attacks them in Shangri-La, taking the dagger and shattering his terracotta form before bathing in the mystical waters. It restores his human form and youth, replenishes his powers, and gives him the ability to shapeshift. He transforms into a gigantic three-headed dragon, kidnaps Lin, and flies to his tomb where he raises the Terracotta Army, now aided by General Yang's soldiers. The Emperor announces his plans to conquer the entire world and that once he leads his army across the Great Wall, they will be invincible. The O'Connells and Zi Yuan pursue the Emperor to the Great Wall where she sacrifices her and Lin's immortality to revive the workers killed and buried beneath The Great Wall, creating her own undead army, led by a vengeful, revived General Ming. The Army of the Dead, with aid from the group's modern weapons and air support, fights the Terracotta Army while Zi Yuan battles the Emperor; she is mortally wounded but succeeds in securing the dagger. Disguised as one of Yang's soldiers, Alex rescues Lin, who Yang had held prisoner, bound and gagged in a tent under armed guard.The group gather up again, finding a grieving Lin cradling the dying Zi Yuan in her arms. As this is going on, the Emperor transforms into a horned Ogre to get past Zi Yuan's army and goes beneath the Great Wall in order to use his elemental powers to negate Zi Yuan's spell and draw Ming's army back underneath it. Alex interrupts the Emperor, who transforms into an ogre and knocks Alex into a wall. Rick tries to stab the Emperor, getting thrown into a lit torch stand for his efforts. Meanwhile, Evelyn and Lin fight with Yang and Choi, eventually knocking the general onto some moving gears that crush both him and Choi. While Emperor is gaining the upper hand over Rick with his Wushu skills, Alex grabs the dagger's blade and slips into the nearby water. Rick takes the dagger's hilt and plunges it into the Emperor's chest while Alex stabs him with the blade's tip from behind, simultaneously piercing the Emperor's heart from both sides and releasing the dagger's curse. The Emperor is consumed from the inside and out by molten lava, resulting in the deaths of him and his army. Ming's army briefly celebrates before finally moving on to a peaceful afterlife.The O'Connells return to Shanghai, where Alex and Lin have fallen in love. Jonathan decides to move to Peru with the Eye of Shangri-La, which he has somehow managed to keep, as he wants to go somewhere with no mummies. In postscript, it is revealed that shortly after his arrival, mummies were discovered in Peru.

Tags: revenge, boring, violence

Review:
I was actually looking forward to seeing this movie, I got the opportunity to see it today, I was excited, but unfortunately, we now have Chinese mummies that can do anything that will fit into the CGI budget.
Another disappointment was the recasting of Evelyn, I know Rachel Weisz turned this script down, but she was seriously needed, Maria Bella, who is a decent actress, actually made Evie a very flat character and not as enjoyable.
Then not only that, but we have Brendan and Maria who do look incredibly good for their age, they have a 20 year old son in the movie?
Now the whole family with Jonathan and the protector who was supposed to keep the emperor from rising, must destroy the Emperor or he will take over the entire world.The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor has some OK moments, I loved the beginning story and the ending battle scene is held pretty strong, it's worth the look for that, but I would say this is more of a rental.
I was very excited when I started seeing teasers for this sequel to be shown in July, mostly because it was quite unexpected.This movie has all the required elements of epic action, sense of humor and great special effects.
John Hannah is still around playing his brother-in-law, Jonathan, in his old annoying manner.For the new stuff, the setting shift to China as the titular "Mummy" now refers to an ancient Chinese emperor who desired immortality, played by Jet Li (who really personified his anti-hero role with relish here).
Furthermore, he also does not act like a son, but more like Brendan's younger brother.But the worst and damaging mistake was the decision to cast Maria Bello in the beloved role of Evelyn O'Connell, which is wholly owned by the more beautiful and credible Rachel Weisz.
He has no chemistry with Maria Bello, who was just awful (She's no Rachel Weisz, that's for damn sure.) and he has even less chemistry with his own son played by Luke Ford, who has the charisma and the charm of a brick, not to mention the fact that he looks just as old as both Fraser and Bello.
Jet Li lacks the menacing presence of Arnold Vosloo from the previous films but that problem is more than less on the shoulders of the director, who was in my opinion more concern with the style of the film than any substance it could have had and because of that, Jet Li and most of the cast got the short end of the stick and it shows.They should have ended it with the second film but instead, we have a movie that manages to make even "The Scorpion King" look as good as Iron Man..
Brendan Fraser (back as Rick O'Connell) his wife Maria Bello (yes they replaced her with someone with half as much talent) her brother John Hannah (what is he doing in this?)and their son Luke Ford (who has now aged by about 20 years) are somehow prancing around in their ordinary lives (in the Far East?) but suddenly the son awakens an evil Mummy Emperor (because hey thats what your bound to do in a movie like this) who wants to use his army of the undead to take over the world and get revenge on the sorceress who put him to sleep so many years ago.
This is probably one of the worst films I've seen in my life, and I don't tend to toss around accusations like that lightly, but this third installment of The Mummy series initiated back in 1999 deserves such dishonor, cause it's such a bad example of film making, it borders on offensive.I'm a guy with simple tastes, I'm not one of those people who think cinema begins and ends with Bergman and Goddard, I actually enjoyed the previous Mummy pictures, even the second one, which I know was cheesy as hell, but like film critic Michael Phillips said about cheesy movies, a movie sometimes is just "10.000 pounds of cheese on a cracker, but sometimes, I'm exactly in the mood for 10.000 pounds of cheese on a cracker." But The Mummy: Tomb of Dragon Emperor is, at best, feces on a cracker, the cracker being the amazing trailer of Quantum of Solace before the movie, probably the highlight of the experience.I won't go into any details regarding the plot, cause, well, the plot is pretty much explained fully on the trailer.
Luke Ford, playing Rick's son, not only looks like two minutes younger than him, but less charm than R2-D2, Michelle Yeoh is wasted, Jet Li doesn't have the Mummy gravitas that Arnold Voosloo had, and finally, Maria Bello; filling in for Rachel Weisz, who had the good common sense to stay away from this dregs, she is horrible, she looks so concern with her fake Posh accent, which she got wrong anyhow, so, at the end, we are left with nothing in the acting department.Rob Cohen, man, is he getting worse and worse, when you though Stealth was really the lowest a director could get, he managed to enlighten us with an even lower level of mediocre work.
If a director cannot make a sword fight between those two modern icons of martial arts films, he should really think about retiring for good.The story is stock, which is to be expected from a B movie of this sort, but like Raiders of the Lost Ark proved, even B movies can be Oscar Hopefuls, but there was no attempt at all with this one.
The pacing of the story is terrible, the special effects are sub par, and at the end, you are left with a 2 hour yawn fest, to which you would fall to sleep within minutes, if it weren't for the loud noises coming from the speakers.The movie is shameful, and not worth the price of the ticket, this movie is the reason why some theaters have money back policies, and had the theater I saw this had one, I would have asked not only for my money back, but for a year of free admissions, for having seen this awful mess..
I mean, Imhotep (in the first two films) did evil things, but he had this romantic tragedy thing going on because he was in love with Anck Su Namun, and you could see some reason for his actions and you could even maybe sympathize with him a little bit (particularly at the end of "The Mummy Returns" when he realized that Anck Su Namun didn't really love him -- at least, not like Evie loved Rick -- and it had all been for nothing).
Brendan Fraser, whose performances I really enjoyed in the first two movies (although a great actor he is not), seemed like he was tired of the whole thing -- monumentally bored and just milking the franchise for another paycheck (I know that's a horrible thing to say, but I can't imagine why else the egregious performance -- I mean, you can only blame so much of it on the rotten script).
But the viewer of "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.There was nothing even remotely funny about this movie -- the "jokes" (if you want to call them that) were either tired, stupid, or completely flat.
Jet-Li, Yeoh had good fight scenes.Cons: Forced dialogue, Maria Bello trying too hard, No chemistry between Fraser-Bello-Ford (the son).
Yes, there are several things we can quibble about (Brendan Fraser's son looking as old as he does, abominable snowmen from out of nowhere, and a very ho-hum love story) but this movie was not made for the Oscars, people.
Before you go and see a mummy movie that is an action/adventure, I do not think expecting a lot of great acting and academy-award winning chemistry is reasonable.
If you are looking for another action/adventure movie (cause you've seen a ton of them like me) or you like the Mummy movie series enough to want to see another, you probably won't be disappointed.
In the end it seems like they're could be a possibility for another mummy movie and I hope they're will be, because I know i will totally be seeing that!
She did okay, but the accent was kind of weird at times though.The action and special effects was probably the best thing in the movie.
Like a longer version of Jet Li fighting Michelle Yeoh and Brendan Fraser at the end of the movie.
I didn't have no major problem with the effects what so ever.The Mummy 3 was a fun movie to watch, but the film has it's flaws.
Its as if they had no idea what they wanted to do and improvised the story as the filming went (however, they were bad at it).I am a huge Mummy and Brendan Fraser fan.
There were amusing moments here and there, but mostly cheesy catchphrases that you would like if you were about thirteen years old.I have to commend Maria Bello for attempting to portray Evenlyn in a satisfactory manner, but she's no Rachel Weiss and that is painfully obvious in all her scenes, and she has little chemistry with Brendan Frasier.
Just that made it good.While most people don't like Maria Bello as Evelyn, I must say she is better than Rachel Weisz.
I have read that Maria Bello and Luke Ford have signed up for more fun-filled CGI Mummies however after this showing it will be direct to DVD.Rob Cohen had a hard act to follow taking over from an already popular franchise and he attempted to take it in a completely new direction, however he has failed.
Alex (Luke Ford) Is not too bad as he looks like his dad Rick (Brendan Fraser) But he hams it up and attempts to play the lead role and poorly attempts to replicate him.
Evelyn - now played by Mario Bello has not got the same chemistry with Rick (Fraser) They seem like complete strangers throughout and her tackey English accent seems to be enough for her to be the replacement for Rachel Weiz....
I like the two first Mummy-movies, as well as Brendan Fraser, John Hannah and Jet Li, but I can't say much good about this film.The idea involving the terracotta soldiers is very interesting, but sadly, it is poorly executed.
The movie introduces YET ANOTHER crazy pilot, as if two weren't enough, the characters of Evelyn and Alex O'Connell are horribly overacted by Maria Bello and Luke Ford, there is no chemistry between Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello what so ever and not even any kind of sibling chemistry between aforementioned Bello and John Hannah.
I wish that Rachel Weisz would have re-prised her role as Evy, but I understand why she didn't.Fraser, Hannah, Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li are good, but honestly, only Jet Li makes the movie worth watching.
I should start off by saying that I love the Mummy and the Mummy Returns, but having done some reading before I went in, my expectations weren't high.Many people have commented that one of the reasons it failed was because of Ms Weiz's absence, however my feeling is that it went much deeper than this.Every one of the actors in this movie seemed to struggle to deliver their lines convincingly.
Don't get me wrong, the Mummy movies are supposed to be "hammy" but this wasn't pork, this was swill!!Even John Hannah, who I have great respect for, just couldn't seem to pull off the character - it was almost like none of them WANTED to do this movie, and just went through the motions.The sad thing is that the story had potential, and the CGI wasn't bad at all.So to sum up, if this is the best we can expect from the sequels, then the Mummy needs to RIP!Jet Li - understand why you didn't say much!.
plot is also simple and absolutely predictable special effects are so many there is no time to realize what is happening and are just conveying the attention but not adding anything to the movie all in all very disappointing, plot writers should work more on a story intriguing more the spectators it is a movie seen time and again....the bad is predictable, the heroes are predictable, the lady protecting the tomb predictable, the evil characters predictable, end of movie predictable...
So when I went to see this I was expecting a new twist on the story due to the fact it took place in China and I was keen to see whether Maria Bello could do a performance worthy of the previous 2 films.
If they have another sequel, please let it be back in Egypt, let them bring back Arnold Vosloo and Rachel Weisz and let it be a fun action film, not like this rubbish.I give this film 2 stars for the only things I can think that are good.1) decent special effects 2) it ends.
Anyway, I felt the film would have benefited from a bit more of actual Jet Li and a bit less CGI effects of his character.Brendan Fraser and John Hannah reprise their respective roles pretty much on par with the previous movies, which is OK in my opinion.
While Alex was a smart, funny and most likable boy who grew up to be self-serving and just plain annoying.The only saving grace was Brendan Fraser, John Hannah, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh, who made the most of a terrible script which should have been re-written with Rachel Weisz in mind.
Whether it was poorly directed or badly funded, it just failed from beginning to end, terrible acting, Maria Bello, who i usually like was terrible, portraying a posh English lady, there was no connection with Brendan Frasier and both looked uncomfortable throughout the film.
The women who played her part was quite simply useless....I hated her from the outset.Overall the film's acting is very poor...mainly because the other cast members are let down by the guy who plays Rik and Evlyns kid and the stupid women who took over Racheal Weiz role.Plus, Jonathon had almost not relevance to the plot...I got the impression his character was there for the sake of it.Absolute rubbish and a complete let down....don't waste your time..
Still, this "Mummy" tries very, very hard to do all, to be all, from an intergalactic-sized avalanche, to abominable snowmen flying through the air (if Yeti are always men, how does the species survive?), to one of the least convincing romances in movie history - between two ghastly young principal actors, Luke Ford and Isabella Leong.Their underachievement, along with embarrassing performances - in the leading roles, no less - by Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello is all the more significant in the starry presence of Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li. A mix, indeed, ugh.One must believe in mummies in order to source the current overwhelming curse on Hollywood, of countless comic-book, super-hero, special-effect permits to print money with movies devoid of (non-monetary) value.
They start off quite good but just get worse as the movie progresses.The best thing in this film is Jet Li, who you don't see enough of.This really was just milking the Mummy cash cow for all its worth, which is a shame because I was a fan of the first two.Die hard fans will probably go see this, but if you asked me I'd tell you to save your money and rent the DVD when it comes out instead..
Both sons have dropped out of college but carry on the swashbuckling of their dads.But the mummy boys just don't have the acting chops of the Jones boys, nor do they have a chance with a lame script that raises from the dead the clichés of serials from years ago and yesterday, or at least they sound like them (upon seeing an army of the undead--Rick O'Connell: "So these are the good undead guys, right?").Although the CGI is impressive, as in all these summer adventures, it's all too much too fast, the cutting so quick the images can't even be appreciated for their artistry.
There is far more chemistry between Bello and Ford in their scenes than the damp scenes in which she and Fraser are lumped together.Love interest, Isabella Leong was not cast for her superb acting skills, I think it's fair to say, but she's good in the action scenes and always very pretty to look at.
A lot of the family dynamic seen in the second Mummy is noticeably absent, and although I personally enjoy Maria Bello, she was no Rachel Weisz (which I feel hurt the film significantly).4.
Ignore the bashing,because you have to deal with Rachel fan boys(she refused the role,because she didn't like the script and Maria Bello who makes a great job sucks,because Rachel is perfect which is laughable)and first film purists which means the first movie is always the best and all the sequels suck.
Even Brendan Fraser who is "supposedly" a good actor ends up looking stupid and you can tell: he does not really like this movie.
Why they made this film I'll never know, it seemed like just another unnecessary movie which completed but also slightly tarnished the Mummy trilogy.
Maria Bello's performance in this is completely forgettable, and as much as I like her shes completely wrong for this role and you never buy that her n Brendan Fraser are deeply in love the way we did in the previous 2 with Rachel Weisz.
Perhaps if you haven't seen how good the first two mummies were than you'd like this movie, but i still doubt it...