After watching Brendan Fraser’s sub par performance in Journey to the center of the Earth, you can only imagine my apprehension when screening The Mummy:Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Although I had my doubts about this movie, being such a huge fan of the first two installments, I felt obligated to continue my journey with the O’Connell’s on another wild adventure set in the Middle Kingdom.

Without question, Tomb was the most inferior film out of the otherwise illustrious franchise. The film wasn’t a total loss, (decent CGI, a few corny jokes, and of course Jet Li) but I felt that many of the elements that made the first two films such huge successes were absent in the third. Its biggest problem? Its horrible cast selection.

Lets begin with Alex O’Connell. What the heck were they thinking? Not only did the guy look totally out of character (he looked 25 while his parents looked 30), his performance was just outright pitiful. It was colorless and hardly felt anywhere close to the performance that Freddie Boath brought to the table in the Mummy Returns.

Then there was the biggest mistake of them all. Continuing this film with the lack of Rachel Weisz (Evie O’Connell). Call me whatever you like, but the lack of Weisz was the worst decision ever made by the film’s producers. Weisz’s cool yet fearless demeanor was missing throughout, and although Maria Bello was a decent replacement, Evie’s character was hardly a glimmer of what it was with Weisz at the helm. After watching this film, I honestly feel that the Mummy franchise should have ended it with The Mummy Returns rather than producing this third film.

Overall this film should do well at the box office due to the popularity of the two previous films. But regardless of any box office success, the damage has already been done. This film was a complete slap in the face to all hardcore Mummy fans an you can be sure that Tomb will never make it to my shelf to sit beside his kindred.

Synopsis:

The blockbuster global Mummy franchise takes a spellbinding turn as the action shifts to Asia for the next chapter in the adventure series, ‘The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.’ Brendan Fraser returns as explorer Rick O’Connell to combat the resurrected Han Emperor (Jet Li) in an epic that races from the catacombs of ancient China high into the frigid Himalayas. Rick is joined in this all-new adventure by son Alex (newcomer Luke Ford), wife Evelyn (Maria Bello) and her brother, Jonathan (John Hannah). And this time, the O’Connells must stop a mummy awoken from a 2,000-year-old curse who threatens to plunge the world into his merciless, unending service. Souce: Moviefone

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