The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor *** (2008, Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, John Hannah, Luke Ford) – Classic Movie Review 1121

Brendan Fraser is back in 2008 as dashing adventurer Rick O’Connell, in this belated, not quite so good second sequel, desperately missing Rachel Weisz, who alas refused to reprise her role as Evy. The film sorely misses their great on-screen chemistry. Weisz gave her reasons as ‘problems with the script’ and having just given birth to her son.

Happily, John Hannah reprises his role as Evy’s brother Jonathan Carnahan and there’s a bit of a coup in getting the involvement of Jet Li as Chinese Emperor Han, as well as Michelle Yeoh as Zi Yuan and Russell Wong as General Ming Guo.

Maria Bello has the difficult, well near-impossible task of following in Weisz’s footsteps as the feisty heroine Evy (Evelyn Carnahan O’Connell) and she’s very competent and feisty, but it just doesn’t work. Bello said this is ‘A new Evelyn. In the first two Mummy movies she was all actiony and lovely. But this Evelyn might be a little more forceful in terms of her martial art skills and shooting skills’.

The 27-year-old Luke Ford takes over the now grown-up kid’s role as Alex O’Connell, going rather desperately for teen appeal. It hurts the film that Ford and Fraser don’t share great chemistry, and nor do Bello and Fraser. The Fraser/Weisz/Hannah triple act was vital to the first two films’ success.

Things are again dumbed down a bit further from The Mummy Returns , but, otherwise, it is more entertaining, good-fun, popcorn movie adventure stuff. It’s very slick and good-natured but alas not too dark or scary, with unfortunately the horror elements of The Mummy left far behind in favour of family-friendly Indiana Jones-style adventure.

Going for novelty value but betraying the whole Egyptian Mummy thing, the film departs from the previous Egyptian setting and takes place in China. This makes a refreshing change, though, and proved good for international sales when the film did better abroad than it did back home in the US.

A postscript at the end of the film reveals that mummies were discovered in Peru, setting up a possible Mummy 4 sequel, but this third instalment turned out to be the final episode in the Mummy series. The Mummy remains the best in the series, with The Mummy Returns a close second.

Principal photography started at Montreal’s Mel’s Cite du Cinema. There, the Eye of Shangri-la scenes were shot by production designer Nigel Phelps and the team then shot on the courtyard set of gateway to Shangri-La. In October 2007 the team moved to China, where at Shanghai Studios, a set depicting the city in the 1940s was used for the chase sequence and was shot in three weeks.

The visual effects were done by two Los Angeles-based VFX houses. Rhythm and Hues Studios designed the Yetis and dragons, while Digital Domain handled the battle scenes with Jet Li’s terracotta warriors. The pool of water resembling diamonds took Rhythm and Hues 11 months to do.

This time the score is composed by Randy Edelman and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, featuring Chinese and Middle Eastern ethnic instruments and classic British folklore. John Debney provided additional re-scored material for the bigger action sequences.

The film is directed by Rob Cohen and only produced by Stephen Sommers, director of the previous two films. It’s written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, whose story is about a Chinese mummy  – China’s first emperor, who wants to take over the world with his army of accursed warriors in 1940. The idea is based on the real-life Qin emperor Qin Shi Huang, who was buried among thousands of crafted and fired terra cotta soldiers, called the Terracotta Army, dated around 210 BC.

Surviving the casting troubles and negative reviews, the worldwide box office totalled more than $400million. But in 2012 it was announced that Universal had cancelled The Mummy 4 and is working on a reboot of The Mummy for 2017 to star Tom Cruise.

The original films are The Mummy (1999) – and The Mummy Returns (2001). The classic Mummy films are The Mummy (1932) and The Mummy (1959).

http://derekwinnert.com/the-mummy-1999-classic-film-review-100/

http://derekwinnert.com/the-mummy-returns-2001-brendan-fraser-rachel-weisz-classic-film-review-1120/

http://derekwinnert.com/the-mummy-1959-classic-film-review-499/

http://derekwinnert.com/the-mummy-1932-classic-film-review/

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 1121 derekwinnert.com