The Mummy - Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor

Life’s A Dragon, 
Then You Die

The Mummy - 
Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
United States/Germany/China/Canada 
2008 Directed by Rob Cohen
Universal UK Blu Ray

Warning: Some mild spoilers.

We were all smacking our lips in anticipation of a third film in the Rick O’ Connell Mummy series after the brilliance of The Mummy (reviewed here) and the pretty great follow up The Mummy Returns (reviewed here). And we were all dreadfully disappointed in what finally came out in cinemas. Stephen Sommers, who wrote and directed the previous two installments, did not direct this movie... other than he’s listed as one of the producers. I hate to say it but... it really shows. I don’t know why he wasn’t involved but his 2004 movie Van Helsing, where he further expanded his reimagining of the classic Universal monster movies, was not treated kindly by critics or box office alike. I don’t know why because I thought that particular take was also pretty good but, I don’t know, maybe that’s why he didn’t do the third Mummy movie. He is sorely missed in this sequel. 

Now, the film isn’t a total mess... it certainly works as a typical action adventure movie of the 2000s but, that’s where this film also fails big time. The thing about the previous two installments is that they were both something very special... so expectations were high this would deliver a similar concoction and, to be fair, a lot of the ingredients which made those two a huge success are present and relatively correct. There’s a huge element missing though and, that element would be... fun. Despite an overemphasis perhaps on the humour found in the first two, this film is not the entertaining romp it should have been and falls flat a lot of the time. That being said, there are one or two notable things in the film and, honestly, it’s not the cast’s fault for sure.

We only have two returning actors from the first film present and correct here... that would be Brendan Fraser as Rick O’Connell and John Hannah as Evelyn’s brother Jonathan. And they’re as good as they can be with this script... as are all the other actors. Another character returns from the previous film, Rick and Evie’s son Alex but, of course, since this is set halfway through the next decade again (each Mummy move in this series is set in a different decade) and Alex is supposed to be considerably older and grown up, he couldn’t be played by the same actor (as this was only about seven years since the last film). Instead they get Luke Ford, who makes a not bad stab at this and even, somehow, manages to have some of the same character traits of the child version from that last story. I say somehow because, character consistency is not high on the priority with the next actor I’ll talk about... again, not her fault.

Okay, so the great Rachel Weisz did not, for reasons known best to her (with many different reported explanations for her absence but I think I believe her when she says she didn’t like the script), return for this sequel. However, the character of Evelyn is all present and correct and the original actress was replaced in this film by Maria Bello. And she does a great job so I mean it as no disrespect to say that, in this role, she is no Miss Weisz. Now, one of the problems I have with her is that she is playing it in a much different manner to the character we’ve come to know. That decision could be defended by remembering that, in the last movie, Evelyn was resurrected from the dead as both herself and the daughter of the murdered Pharaoh in the first film... so a slightly different personality could be a valid choice... if that fact were at all referenced in this one but, nope, not much (if anything) is said about it (this time it’s her husband who gets killed and then brought back to life). She does get a nice line of dialogue though... which I’ll come back to in a minute. 

For the record, both Arnold Vosloo and Oded Fehr declined to return for this film also... so the original script must have been pretty different from what we ended up with. 

Two other big actors in this movie are both kung fu legends in their own country... Jet Li as the villainous Dragon Emperor himself and future Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh. Both are great but, come on... another reason people were chomping at the bit for this movie was that we wanted to see them both put their kung fu skills to use (and a ten minute fight scene between the two would have been most welcome). It would be an understatement to say that neither has a chance to shine in this one... especially in Yeoh’s case. 

Right... there are a few nice things. One is that we are re-introduced to Evelyn at a book reading of her latest novel, based on the second of her adventures. When someone asks her if the character in her book is based on her, Bello’s face is revealed and she says... “Honestly, I can say she's a completely different person.” Which is a nice and cheeky nod to the audience (pretty much the only one in the film, I’ll get to that) that she is a different actress taking over the role. It’s the exact same kind of metatextual comment on casting that George Lazenby delivers at the end of the pre-credits sequence in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (reviewed here) when he turns to the camera and says, “This never happened to the other fellow.” So... a nice moment. 

The only other nice thing in this movie... for me... asides from a nod to the first two films by having the name of Jonathan’s night club be “Imhotep’s”... is the inclusion of a small bunch of abominable snowmen... aka yetis... who help out our merry band of heroes at a crucial time. They’re nicely done although, I’ve no idea how two of the creatures can make a visual reference to the game of American Football... to be sure. Maybe try not to think about that too hard. 

A curious thing is that, when Jet Li’s character is fully resurrected, he can take on various forms. The two things he shape shifts into seem curious choices. One is a three headed dragon which bears an uncanny resemblance to King Ghidorah in the original Godzilla films and the other creature he changes into seems to slightly resemble King Caesar, from that same cycle of Godzilla films so... I dunno... I’m surprised the studio didn’t get sued over this. Maybe the director was secretly trying to pitch for a Godzilla reboot at the time? Who knows but... anyone who is into their kaiju eiga would surely get a jolt at seeing these creatures here.

As I was watching the film... I was trying to figure out why it just doesn’t work. There’s loads of humour (which mostly falls flat for me... unlike the other two movies), the action set pieces are well put together, the actors are all good and Randy Eidelman’s score for this (although partially replaced by stuff from John Debney, it would seem) is sweeping and fine... if not a patch on the scores provided for the earlier films by Jerry Goldsmith and Alan Silvestri. I think, for me, the film loses out in terms of the script and the way the humour is played. The script is really stating the obvious and explaining every last thing to the audience and capitalising it... me and my father looked at each other this time when a particularly stupid line (one of the unintentionally stupid lines) came up. And the other problem with it is that, unlike its predecessors, the audience aren’t let in on the joke. Asides from the “different person altogether” line, there are none of the sly winks to the audience that the other two had. It feels like its taking itself too seriously and, consequently, it never really gets us on its side... it’s just not as entertaining as either previous installment and... yeah... it’s just a bit of a let down.

No further films were made (as yet) in this series although, the Tom Cruise version of The Mummy (reviewed here) does include the book of the dead from the first film as a visual reference in one scene... so it’s technically taking place in the same universe. A fourth one featuring an Aztec Mummy was planned but never came to fruition... again, as yet. As for how I stand on this... well, for me, The Mummy - Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor certainly hasn’t grown on me. It was as much of a disappointment this time around as the previous times I saw it so, yeah, if you only see this one, don’t miss out on the first two just because this is not up to scratch. I hope someday the original writer/director and cast will come back to do just one more but... who knows if that will happen. 

The Mummy Returns

Karnak... 
And How To Get It

The Mummy Returns
USA 2001
Directed by Stephen Sommers
Universal UK Blu Ray

Warning: Some major spoilers.

The Mummy Returns was my most looked forward to movie going experience of 2001, I suspect. The Mummy, reviewed here, was probably the best, big budget, old school adventure movie since the first of the Indiana Jones movies and a whole bunch of us had tickets to see the sequel in a big West End cinema in London’s Leicester Square on its first weekend. I had a very strange experience with this the very first time I saw it though... my friends all loved it but I was really disappointed in it that first screening. I don’t know why but I suspect this is the first of a few films where there was so much stuff thrown at the screen that maybe my mind got distracted and couldn’t process it all on the first run. Fortunately, because my parents had loved the first one and wanted to see this one, I had promised to take them to see it as soon as it opened in my local cinema the following week. I’m grateful that I did because, bizarrely, I absolutely loved it the second time around and, looking at it now, it certainly does still hold up well. 

It’s not as good as the first movie but it does have a lot going for it and, above all, it leaned more into what the first film did for a lot of its running time... temper down the horror aspects and stick more with the action and humour. Not always the best tactic, granted but, yeah, it works really well here. 

All the big guns from the previous film are back for the second helpings too and, they certainly haven’t steered clear of certain characters taking on a new depth in terms of growth and some blatant tweaks. We’ve got Brendan Fraser back as Rick O’ Connor, Rachel Weisz back as Evelyn (now Rick’s wife), John Hannah back as Evelyn’s brother Jonathan, Oded Fehr back as Ardeth Bay, Patricia Velasquez as Anck-Su-Namun and Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep. 

Some of the characters are expanded thusly... Rick O’ Connel discovers the tattoo on his arm from the orphanage as a kid is a sign that he’s an honourary member of the Medjai (Ardeth Bay’s crowd), Evelyn is actually a rebirth of Princess Nefertiri (the living family line of the daughter of the king killed by Imhotep and Anck-Su-Namun at the start of the previous movie) and Patricia Velasquez is the living embodiment of Anck-Su-Namun in the 20th century... and who chooses to host Anck-Su-Namun’s soul in her body.

There are also three very important new characters... Freddie Boath plays Alex (the son of the O’ Connell’s), Shaun Parkes plays Izzy (an old ‘friend’ of Rick) and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson makes his non-wrestling debut as The Scorpion King who, although he’s one of the film’s villains, was liked so much by the crowds here that he spun off into the first film of what became a Scorpion King franchise. 

Okay... not going over the plot here because a) I don’t particularly want to spoil it anymore than I’m going to in a minute and b) I’m sure most people would have seen this one by now. But, of note in this one are the following...

There are a couple of great fights between Rachel Weisz and Patricia Velasquez, taking place in ancient Egypt in one instance and also the current setting of the film, 1933 (around a decade after the events in the first movie) and, considering they are both wearing masks for the majority of the first fight and the dynamic moves and flips the ladies perform, well, you’d think they had a really good couple of stunt doubles. Not so, though. It turns out that both these actresses trained for these fights for 5 months and no stunt performers were involved. So, yeah... those fights are actually quite something in terms of the actresses in question. There’s also a nice replay of the ancient murder scene from the start of The Mummy but seen from Nefertiri’s point of view, watching from afar, which explains why the king’s guards were able to arrive at the scene of the crime almost immediately. 

Alex accidentally knocks down all the support columns in a temple near the start, in the exact same configuration as Evelyn did with the library book shelves in the first movie. Later, when he’s trying to resurrect Evelyn back from the dead using The Book Of The Dead from the first film, he stumbles reading the exact same symbol/character that Jonathan did in the first film... down to using his arms to mimic the flight of a bird, just as John Hannah did. I don’t know who had the idea but, apparently, the 10 year old Freddie Boath who plays Alex cited The Mummy as his favourite film and had seen it at least 30 times. So he quickly became something of an on set advisor for the cast and crew between his scenes and, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was his idea to make the wing flap mannerism when he gets stuck at that same word. Just conjecture though and, either way, it’s a really nice touch. 

Oh wait... did I say Evelyn’s resurrection scene? Nobody ever sees this one coming (including me) but, around half an hour from the end, once Alex has been rescued from kidnappers and also from having the life sucked out of him by the bracelet of Anubis, Evelyn is killed. Run through by Anck-Su-Namun in a perfectly timed scene which really takes you by surprise. And, to the director’s credit, this doesn’t play as a throw away moment. She has a proper ‘last words’ death scene and Rick enters a temple after Imhotep (and the reincarnated Scorpion King), in full vengeance mode. Director Sommers even does a nice series of shots using different takes in different lighting environments all crosscut together of Rick walking down a tunnel to emphasis his ferocity... which is a really nice touch. So the audience really feels the loss of Evelyn but then, wonderfully, her son manages to resurrect her (and Nefertiri co-sharing her body) and she returns to kick ass and help out in the final battle between good and evil. This is all sold really well and, once again, my hats off to the writer/director. 

Anck-Su-Namun also has her own resurrection scene earlier in the movie and I suspect it’s more than just coincidence that it plays out near a body of water... which I suspect is a veiled reference to scenes which were shot but, alas, excised before release - and never re-found - of a scene between Boris Karloff and Zita Johann in the 1932 production of The Mummy (reviewed here). 

Unfortunately, due to various reasons (depending on who you believe), Jerry Goldsmith didn’t return to score this one... instead we have Alan Silvestri doing his own thing with the music and, although I wonder how good a Goldsmith soundtrack might have been for this film, Silvestri does a really good job at bringing some big themes and exciting action music into this one. 

And I think that’s me about done on The Mummy’s Return. Definitely not a jump on movie, you’d have to see the first one if you want to get the most from it but, still, a great action adventure tale with a lot of humour and, once again, the writer/director makes the audience feel like they’re in on the joke with all the genre clichés and tropes... rather than being treated as idiots. I have a lot of time for this director... and these movies... and they’re just the ticket if you want big, periodical action mixed into your viewing experience. A pretty great sequel, it has to be said. 

The Mummy (1999)

In My Humble 
Opinion... Tep!

The Mummy (1999)
USA 1999
Directed by Stephen Sommers
Universal UK Blu Ray

I remember when this version of The Mummy first came out in cinemas. I was worried about it because I love the Universal monster movies of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and I was concerned that Stephen Sommers, who was said to be making more of an action adventure film, would be doing the concept a disservice. Then I went to the cinema and saw the finished product for myself and, wow, I absolutely adored this right from the start. I remember The Matrix was released in the UK about a week later and I remember hating that one and thinking, why didn’t I just go see The Mummy again rather than pay out for that. I did see this film a few more times at the cinema though and, even though it has several mistakes (which the director gleefully points out in his informative old US DVD commentary... I’m assuming this is the same one ported over for this Blu Ray) it’s still an absolute masterpiece.

So, the film is a strange tonal hybrid in that, yes, there are certain scenes, mostly in the first half, where Sommers is definitely playing with the film in terms of the horror genre and, although there are a few great fight sequences in the first hour, he really does push the creepiness of the concept a lot more than, I think, people realise once they get caught up in the next hour. So, for example, the sequences where The Mummy is first brought back to life and runs around in the tomb as panicked archeologists and treasure hunters try to escape him are the film very much going into good old fashioned horror mode. There’s even a creepy prelude culminating in a jump scare in an early scene which takes place in a library and sets up one of the characters.  

But there’s more to this as the film is injected with a good dose of old 1930s-50s adventure movie serial components, pushing the Indiana Jones aspects of the film and ratcheting up the action and nostalgia stakes that come with that territory. And it’s done with a huge dose of humour which, yeah, could have gone terribly wrong for the movie but, because the script on this one is so good and, because the various actors are so brilliant in this, Sommers manages to pull it off with ease and, in doing so, he created a lasting classic which still endures and holds up now. 

As for those actors.. we have Brendan Fraser who is, frankly, brilliant in the role of adventurer Rick O Connell, playing him with a lot of humour and confidence. We have Rachel Weisz as librarian Evie, who is a kind of feminist version of a 1920s heroine and gives as good as she gets and, indeed, even has a penchant for inflicting eye injuries on her foes (in at least two scenes). We also have John Hannah playing her kid brother Jonathan, who is used as comic relief and is a nice contrast to Fraser’s leading man, the two playing off one another nicely. 

Arnold Vosloo as title character Imhotep is absurdly good in this role and almost a likeable and sympathetic character, if he wasn’t so determined to kill everybody in horrible ways. Kevin J. O'Connor as the weaselly Beni (who had the best line in Sommer’s earlier movie Deep Rising and steals many of the greatest scenes here) is probably the absolute greatest thing about this movie, playing a character so disloyal he ends up helping Imhotep in order to both stay alive and make off with a load of treasure but who, to paraphrase the words of lead character Rick O Connel, gets what’s coming to him. 

Lastly, there’s Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bay and the gorgeous Patricia Velasquez as Princess Anck Su Namun. Both of these characters and their respective actors would get much bigger roles in the first direct sequel, The Mummy Returns. 

As for the direction, editing, cinematography etc... this is also a technical masterpiece... despite the mistakes which have either been edited around or, in some cut sequences, actually created by the editing with shots that either don’t quite match or defy logic if you happen to latch onto them (again, Sommer’s commentary is really worth listening to, if it’s the same one that he did for the initial DVD release). 

For instance, when everyone is running around and trying to escape the mummy’s tomb when he is first revived, one of the characters loses his glasses. What happens next is that when the camera is a point of view from that character or from just behind the character looking away from him, he blurs the focus to imply a POV shot. But here’s the thing, the camera then pans around to this character and the shot changes into sharp focus... within that same uninterrupted shot (and he does this a couple of times in this sequence). So, yeah, that’s the first time I’ve caught a director literally implying a change of POV within the same shot... brilliant stuff. 

He also uses the camera and editing to give us some nice transitions. Such as a moment where Evie and Jonathan are looking at the map. We then cut to a close up of the map before cutting away to Jonathan and Evie and a third character talking about the map in a different location. It’s not a new way of doing things but it’s a nice bit of visual shorthand and it works very well. 

As do some of the visual wipes used in the film. For instance, when Fraser jumps diagonally down into a chamber entrance in the ground, into a tomb in the city of Hamunaptra, a visual wipe follows him diagonally down, revealing him and Weisz already in the tomb. Nice stuff. 

Another thing the director does which really helps lift the film where others trying to capture the same magic have failed, is that he lets the audience in on the joke. For instance, the sudden appearance of wind and atmosphere going nuts when anyone says anything dark and filled with foreboding is certainly a genre cliché and here Sommers does it at least three times. But, here’s the rub, he does it so unsubtly and so self consciously, that the audience realises right off the bat that he’s doing it tongue in cheek. It’s like he’s winking at the audience and saying, it’s okay to not take this seriously... we certainly aren’t. And to spell that out even further, there’s even a scene where it happens yet again and Brendan Fraser says... “That happens a lot around here!” It’s a nice touch and makes all the difference to the way the film is received... the audience are invited to laugh along at the absurdities and genre clichés right along with the actors on screen, elevating the experience accordingly. 

Another great thing about this movie... Jerry Goldsmith. I was at one of many of his concerts I attended over the years and, in at least one of them, he played a suite of music from The Mummy. He told the audience he was really struggling with it and didn’t think much of the movie until he at last found a way to have fun with it. When the sequel came up, he turned it down citing scheduling conflicts and, while Alan Silvestri provides a great score for the sequel, it means the franchise suffers from the same lack of musical continuity that modern Marvel and DC movies have... which is a shame. Even so, Goldsmith’s score for The Mummy is outstanding and, for my money, in the top twenty scores of his long career. The camel race is especially beautiful, as is the heavy percussion which comes in right at the end and the shot transitions to everybody setting up camp in Hamunaptra. It’s easily one of the greatest scores he did around this time and the modern, expanded version of the CD with the entire score on it means I no longer have to leave the old US DVD on the languages menu if I want to hear it in total... as the full score playing from start to end was an easter egg on that disc if you stay in that menu. 

Oh, and about the old DVD... for the British readers here. The Mummy was uncut at our cinemas but had some cuts made for the UK home viewing versions at the time. For instance, the extended hanging scene from near the start of the movie, which in real life caused Brendan Fraser to pass out, was heavily truncated on the UK home video releases. Which is why I would only touch the American release of this movie back in the day. I’m pleased to report that the UK Blu Ray (which is now in a single clasp case with the two direct sequels), has had those cuts waived, so it can be watched properly again in this country now. 

And that’s me about done on this one. Rewatching it now was a real trip and the film holds up very well. I’m looking forward to revisiting the sequels very soon... well, the first sequel at any rate. I’m hoping that the third movie will maybe have grown on me over time. I’ll report back here on those soon.