Rick O’Donnell (Brendan Fraser), his wife Evelyn and their grown son try to stop a resurrected Chinese emperor from taking over the world.

CRITIQUE

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is the third entry in the Mummy series, though the bad guy here really isn’t a mummy; instead, he is an evil emperor (Jet Li) turned into a terracotta warrior (along with his whole army) 2000 years ago by a curse, which he spends the whole movie here trying to undo.  The result has a few good action sequences, but too often this just feels predictable and clunky, and though big fans of the first two films might want to check this out, it’s really a rather mediocre adventure, particularly on the small screen.

Brendan Fraser returns as archaeologist Rick O’Donnell, though Rachel Weisz has been replaced by an almost-unrecognizable Maria Bello as his wife Evelyn.  The set-up here has them older and unconvincingly retired, though they return to action when asked to bring a treasure back to China, which turns out to have something to do with an archaeological dig that their college-age son Alex is working on.

Unfortunately, it takes a long time even to get here, with the first 10 minutes of the film made up of a sequence set 2000 years ago setting up the evil emperor, and the emperor not being resurrected until the 40 minute mark.  The plot feels rather contrived throughout, basically an excuse to set up a series of action setpieces and confrontations, as they move from Shanghai to the Himalayas and back to China again, trying to stop the emperor from doing a string of things he needs to do to return his army to life and give himself full, living immortality.

Director Rob Cohen dumbs this all down, apparently aiming for a young audience; everything is over-explained, while there is a lot of attempts at slapstick humor, and some one-note family drama mixed in with all the shoot-outs and martial arts battles.  By the end, this is rife with special effects, and probably looked better on a big screen, but as entertainment it is only sporadically successful.

THE VIDEO

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen.  The picture quality is generally good and the transfer crisp.

THE AUDIO

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is presented in English 5.1, French 5.1 or Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround.  Dialogue, music and sound effects come through clear.  There are English, Spanish and French subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There is a Commentary featuring director Rob Cohen, which is chatty and listenable, though he seems to think he made a much more interesting movie than is ever on the screen.

There are 10 minutes of Deleted and Extended Scenes which were basically just cut for time, though there isn’t much that is memorable here.

The Making of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is a 23-minute making-of featurette that is fairly-familiar promotional-type material, featuring interviews with the cast and crew.  There is some interesting behind the scenes material here.

From City To Desert is a 16-minute piece focusing on the locations, and the fact that this was the first big Hollywood movie to shoot in China.

Legacy of the Terra Cotta is a 13-minute featurette about the historical research done on the film, particularly about the real-life terra cotta warriors.

A Call To Action: The Casting Process is a 5-minute piece that is really just talking about the cast, rather than the process.

Preparing For Battle is a 10-minute piece about the fight scenes in the movie.

Jet Li: Crafting the Emperor Mummy is an 8-minute piece about doing the extensive CG work to bring the terra cotta version of Jet Li’s character to life.

Creating New and Supernatural Worlds is a 9-minute piece about bringing realistic scale to the film.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Somewhat borderline, though ultimately there’s enough here to check out if it seems to have appeal for you.