Starring Brendan Fraser, Jet Li. Written by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar. Directed by Rob Cohen. (PG) 111 min. Opens Aug 1.
Not to suggest that one should pre-judge mummy movies or sequels or even Brendan Fraser, but a third installment in The Mummy series would be a tough sell even if Batman wasn’t currently fleecing moviegoers to the collective tune of $300 million-and-counting. Just roll your mentality back to age eight and hope it goes by fast, we told ourselves.
Turns out The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was right there with us — gleefully unabashed in its own inanity yet just focused enough to hold things together for a tight, schlocky thriller that could teach Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a thing or two about 1930s-serial revivalism.
The mission finds action man Rick O’Connor (Fraser) and his equally up-for-it historian/author wife Evelyn (Maria Bello, standing in for Rachel Weisz) coming out of (brief) retirement to help their grown son Alex (Luke Ford), a tomb-raider who has inadvertently roused the millennia-dead and extremely pissed-off Chinese emperor Han (Jet Li) and his Terracotta Army (yeah, that Terracotta Army). None of that really matters — nor does the fact that Bello’s attempt at an English accent pretty much begins and ends with her pursing her lips a lot and speaking haughtily. But then, acting opposite perfect ham Fraser, she could just be suppressing a smirk.
Winking the whole way, The Mummy mk III trots out the usual parade of CGI’d archeological undead and throws in kung-fu fights, Chinese Nationalists, Irish mercenaries, burgeoning love between mortals and immortals, Michelle Yeoh (yay), a yakking yak, a band of friendly Yetis, a very cool avalanche sequence and, at last, Shangri-La. The movie only pauses to laugh at itself, usually via John Hannah, back with an inventory of groan-worthy one-liners as Evelyn’s hapless brother.
There’s something to be said for lowered expectations — even more for a movie that takes full advantage of them.