My Review of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor · 10:08pm Oct 1st, 2023
Rating Scale:
12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; it is something I might watch again
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made
Greetings, folks. This is Mr. J back with another movie review for today. This evening, I will be reviewing the final installment of the Mummy trilogy called “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”. After enjoying the first two movies for their amazing storyline and compelling characters, I hoped this movie would grant a satisfying conclusion to this series…although the second movie did exactly that. Unfortunately, Mummy 3 turned out to be a mediocre snore-fest that has zero passion and faithfulness to the previous installments.
This movie is about a dragon emperor who leads a civil war to become the founder of the Qin Dynasty, builds the Great Wall of China, and learns to control water, fire, wood, metal, and earth. But a treacherous relationship would soon cost him his life and become cursed into a “mummy”.
First off, this is exactly where the movie fails big time. This has absolutely nothing to do with the previous movies which makes Mummy 3 come across as an unnecessary addition to the series. The Dragon Emperor barely resembles a mummy, let alone a menacing one. It does nothing to connect any plot points from the first two movies in order to bring it full circle. First, we spend a lot of time in Egypt, and now we’re focusing on China suddenly? What???
Additionally, it would been tolerable if the movie was a separate thing on its own; just change the title to something like “The Rise of the Dragon Emperor”, and I would’ve been fine with it. It still wouldn’t be a great movie, but it would’ve been decent at best.
As far as the characters are concerned, most of them—especially a couple of returning characters—didn’t feel the same as before. Brendan Fraser especially felt like he was trying his best to work with the material he was given, but not even he was able to save the movie. He looked like he didn’t want to be in this, and the other actors weren’t that impressive honestly.
I do admit that Michelle Yeoh was really good in her role as Zi Yuan. She’s a phenomenal actress, and I wanted to see more of her character. But the fact that she gets killed off without getting her chance to finally avenge Ming’s death was a complete disservice to her character. I really wanted her to survive and deliver the killing blow, but fine, have Brendan Fraser do it because he’s the main character. Why not? 🙄
The Dragon Emperor himself felt kinda dull and boring in contrast to Imhotep. It’s like this film was trying to copy the former antagonist when it comes to motivation and lust for power and immortality but failing to capture the heart and soul of the writing thereof.
Rob Cohen did a subpar job in concluding the series that Stephen Sommers wonderfully crafted and reimagined. I can see what he was trying to do in his direction, but it feels like it got lost in the execution somewhere. Like I said, if he made it into a solo film on its own while putting in a few references to The Mummy duology, it would have been excusable.
I do like the action scenes, the humor, and the acting quite a bit as they were the only saving graces in this whole mess. Yes, even the CGI and visual effects were really bad in this movie as well. Quite an embarrassing downgrade, if you ask me.
Overall, it is a fall from grace and the weakest installment of the trilogy. It gets a 5/10. It really didn’t deserve to end this way. If it was just the first two movies, the series as a whole would’ve been near-perfect at best. But hey, I’m sure Brendan Fraser enjoyed that paycheck, no doubt.
Peace.
I agree with you on this.
The movie as a whole was a 50/50 venture for me. Some aspects I enjoyed, others not so much. Even so, it clearly didn’t need to exist in the first place, and it felt like this sequel was made purely for the money. That’s why I hardly count this sequel as officially canon.
Honestly, my favorite scene was when the yeti appeared to help out.
Yeah...this was certainly a downgrade compared to the first two films. I think if you only had a grown-up Alex and maybe a cameo from Jonathan to loosely connect the films, it'd have worked for a threequel but...nope, doesn't hold up to the other two.
My favorite scene is the yeti punt and their reactions. Beyond that; this really wasn't needed as a movie