The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Yuck. I love The Mummy, and The Mummy Returns is a great sequel. But this? Rob Cohen is not Stephen Sommers. Maria Bello is not Rachel Weisz. Jet Li is not Arnold Vosloo. Neither Brendan Fraser nor John Hannah do much in favor of the third Mummy. I liked a few, really only a few, scenes (the opening one, the yetis and part of the final "battle") but overall I was very disappointed. Thanks at least for the likeable duo of Michelle Yeoh and Isabella Leong. Thanks to Cohen, all the playfulness has gone out of The Mummy, leaving an uninspired 112-minute-long mess, which I hope has been so overused that no one will make a fourth film. Only Sommers, but I don't believe that.__P.S. Edelman's good music is a shame to waste on this one. (08/29/2009)

This is easy to predict and even easier to forget crap which at times is not even good enough for that one single use. Cohen is a purely action director, so it all comes down to overblown acrobatic escapades, which are ably followed by special effects, but their sterility knows no bounds. It lacks any ounce of perspective (and no, Liam Cunningham doesn't save it), and thus you're more likely to identify scenes stolen from elsewhere. I don't mind Maria Bello (I like her a lot as an actress), but as a replacement for Rachel Weisz, she was a total casting mistake. The family etudes are tired and the whole is desperately boring. (11/05/2010)

The third part came like an uninvited poor relative whom you don't like even before they knock on the door. However, while everyone expectedly wanted to kick it out, I found a way to it. And this despite my suffering from the loss of Rachel Weisz and therefore the inevitable transformation of Evelyn into a character who is neither a writer nor an adventurer, just a mandatory maternal element. With the change of director, he also lost a class of more childish humor, but I am still a viewer who hears, admires Brendan Fraser's adventurous position in big-budget archaeological trips, and holds my breath during the prologue, autohonic, or avalanche. Although I was one of the worst prophets, I must now admit that I was surprisingly wrong. Shanghai and the Himalayas cannot replace Egypt and London, but still - thanks for my beloved series only dropping one class and not ending as deep as it could have under the hands of another team. 75% (12/07/2008)

Certainly effective, but more like an overpriced video game. If it weren’t for the solid cast and outstanding ending, it would have been a tragedy. Jet Li is criminally underused and I bet that he managed to film his part in three days max, but luckily he makes a good villain and so he manages to impress despite everything. And when I think back to the trailers, it looked so promising. Oh dear. (11/08/2008)

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor basically largely rips off the previous installments, especially the second one, and even though it was released in 2008, it doesn't exactly offer great visual effects (though thankfully, they're better than in the second one). While I've liked Maria Bello since Coyote Ugly, I missed the excellent Rachel Weisz. Brendan Fraser was still quite fit, but still bland acting-wise, as was Luke Ford as his son. Jet Li wasn't bad, John Hannah was passable (the interaction with the cow was funny), but it was Michelle Yeoh who appealed to me the most out of the whole cast. That said, the presence of the yetis, the family filler, the stilted action, and the stilted script inexorably bring the film down to the waters of mediocrity. (02/28/2021)