After seeing this third installment of “The Mummy” series I say the series is officially DEAD.
Brendan Fraser is back in his role as archeologist Rick O’Connell. He and his wife (now played by Maria Bello) are retired from the killing mummy business, until they are asked to go on one final mission to deliver a valuable artifact to China. There they meet up with their son, who’s too old to really be their son, and together they must kill the mummy of the evil Dragon Emperor.
There’s more attempts at comedy in this 3rd “Mummy”, but the attempts don’t work. The acting is corny throughout the film and there are several obvious mistakes in the plot.
The special effects are impressive at times but in this day and age you need more than just special effects to make a successful action/adventure film. You need a good story and believable characters and “The Mummy” doesn’t have either. I was bored for most of the nearly 2-hours of the movie. I think fans of the series will be very disappointed.
“The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” is rated PG-13. There’s plenty of the usual action violence and some bad language. And there are some scary characters, including a 3-headed dragon and some Yetis that make the film a little too intense for young children. Kids 8 and up should be o.k., but there are a lot better movies that they should be seeing than this one.
On The Official Kid Critic Report Card, “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” only gets a D+.
After this disaster let’s hope Universal considers bringing a new action series to life and lets “The Mummy” rest in peace.
Lights Camera Jackson (a.k.a. Jackson Murphy) began his career as a film critic/entertainment reporter in 2006 at the age of 7. Jackson has written nearly 1,000 reviews of new releases. All together he has seen more than 1,500 films. In 2010, Jackson became the youngest person to win a NY Emmy Award, for his on-air movie reviews on Time Warner TV station, Capital News 9.
LCJ appears every Friday morning on WGNA-FM . His movie reviews are also posted on his website, his YouTube channel and the popular website Cultjer.com. He is also a contributing writer for Jerry Beck’s AnimationScoop.com. Jackson hosts the weekly internet pop culture news show “LCJ LIVE” (every Sunday at Noon ET). And “The LCJ Q&A Podcast” features interviews with celebrities and filmmakers.