The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (2008)

This is the third installment in The Mummy franchise, which has always wanted to join the Indiana Jones league. Harrison Ford’s high jinks as Indy were B-movies transformed by Steven Spielberg into successful action-adventure classics. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor makes a noble attempt to hop on that bandwagon.

We are introduced to the now retired husband and wife exploring team, Rick and Evelyn O’Connell, in 1946 England. Once the intrepid duo is persuaded to travel to Shanghai for one final flirt with death, they are tricked into helping resurrect an evil 2,000-year-old Chinese emperor. The emperor’s schemes to become immortal all those years ago were foiled when a harmless philosopher laid a curse on him. While in Shanghai, Rick and Evelyn run into their self-important college dropout son, a man for whom the term ‘generation gap’ clearly means nothing.

Anyway, the curse is accidentally lifted and the emperor awakens his rebel army (the terra cotta army in motion). There is something charming about seeing one of the world’s greatest archaeological finds marching in formation once again. The race is on to the Shangri-La, high in the Himalayas, for a dip in the fountain of eternal youth promising immortality. The emperor becomes a shape-shifting fiend who can transform himself into any manner of hideous creature. Accompanying the O’Connells is Evelyn’s eccentric, wisecracking brother Jonathan as the token socially inept intellectual hovering in the background.

In this frenzied cinematic storm of CGI clichés, we get an avalanche, an army of bow-and-arrow-wielding skeletons, a car chase that turns into a fireworks explosion, and a pack of snowy yetis. Never-ending action sequences are edited to within an inch of their lives in the production team’s attempt to cram in as many 11 year-olds as possible. Watching John Hannah et al on a rickety airplane sitting in a pool of yak vomit results in a feeling of rapt attention on the viewer’s part.
 

Director: Rob Cohen
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, Michelle Yeoh, John Hannah and Luke Ford
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 107 minutes (approx.)
Special Features:Deleted And Extended Scenes, Feature Commentary With Director Rob Cohen
RRP: £19.99
Release date: 1st December 2008

Adrian McBreen