Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Mummy Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
76 Plays1 year ago
Cursed by a devious sorceress, China's ruthless Dragon Emperor (Jet Li) and his vast army lie buried in clay for millennia. When young archaeologist Alex O'Connell is tricked into reviving the emperor, he and his famous parents (Brendan Fraser, Maria Bello) must find a way to send the ghoul back to the grave before he can awaken his vast army and take over the world.
Release date: August 1, 2008 (USA)
Director: Rob Cohen
Budget: 145 million USD (2008)
Box office: 403.4 million USD
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Based on: Characters; by Stephen Sommers; Lloyd Fonvielle; Kevin Jarre
- SHOW NOTES:
Use the link below to interact with the shows social media pages and more. While you are doing that, don't forget to hit those like and subscribe buttons so you can stay up to date on all the latest news and reviews. The show does live watch parties, game streams, movie giveaways and more.
https://linktr.ee/MattGoesToTheMovies
- CHECK OUT THE BASEMENT BINGE PODCAST:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Focus on 'Tomb of the Dragon Emperor'
00:00:01
Speaker
All right.
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody.
00:00:03
Speaker
We are back at Matt Goes to the Movies to finally cap off the Mummy franchise with Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
00:00:13
Speaker
There was some twists and some turns along the way, but we are finally here.
Rewatching and Changed Perspectives
00:00:20
Speaker
Rob and I both just finished this rewatch very recently.
00:00:25
Speaker
Him as little as 45 minutes ago and me as little as 10 minutes ago.
00:00:32
Speaker
I just finished this.
00:00:33
Speaker
So this is completely fresh.
00:00:37
Speaker
Some different thoughts than what I...
00:00:40
Speaker
remember having about this movie, whether that's good or bad, that's why
Accessibility of 'The Mummy' Series
00:00:45
Speaker
we're here.
00:00:45
Speaker
But Rob, I do find it funny that, you know, you can go to a library and get this.
00:00:54
Speaker
Um, you can rent it for four 99 or three 99 off of sites, or you could buy the whole damn series for nine 99 in some places.
00:01:08
Speaker
Um, yeah, this whole series, the first two movies alone are certainly worth $9.99.
00:01:12
Speaker
So what, what all comes in that?
00:01:14
Speaker
Is it, uh, the, the four films that we've talked about or what else is in that?
00:01:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:18
Speaker
Scorpion King, the mummy, the mummy returns and the mummy tomb of the dragon emperor.
00:01:22
Speaker
You can, granted it's on DVD, but you can pick up all four films for $9.99.
00:01:26
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:01:29
Speaker
I mean, if you, if you think that you're getting two good movies for $5 each, that's a good deal.
00:01:35
Speaker
That's not a bad deal at all.
00:01:38
Speaker
Maybe you tipped your head a little bit by saying... Did I?
00:01:43
Speaker
By saying two good movies.
00:01:45
Speaker
But, you know, 2008, this came out.
00:01:48
Speaker
It stars, obviously...
Impact of Cast Change: Rachel Weisz to Maria Bello
00:01:55
Speaker
Jet Li, which was, you know, he was very, very big at the time.
00:01:59
Speaker
Brendan Fraser had returned and it was, you know, it was a very long time.
00:02:04
Speaker
I mean, seven years since the mummy returns had hit.
00:02:10
Speaker
Did we get.
00:02:12
Speaker
a third mummy movie.
00:02:14
Speaker
Um, I think that's in part to do with the Scorpion King didn't do exactly what they thought it would be.
00:02:19
Speaker
Um, I, I think they thought the Scorpion King was going to take over this franchise and decided they need to bring some, you know, bring this back.
00:02:27
Speaker
Um, but the, uh,
00:02:29
Speaker
The real, you know, big omission here, and we've talked about this in the other reviews, was the fact that Rachel Weisz decided not to come back.
00:02:38
Speaker
She was not happy with the script.
00:02:40
Speaker
And Maria Bello stepped in in her place.
00:02:45
Speaker
And my original criticism still stands.
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker
she's just no Rachel Weisz.
00:02:54
Speaker
She doesn't have the screen presence that she does, and she doesn't have the chemistry with Brendan Fraser, which is something that severely hurts this movie.
00:03:03
Speaker
Now, whether or not I think it's as bad as I originally did, we'll get into that, but it's clear right off the bat.
00:03:10
Speaker
She just...
00:03:12
Speaker
She doesn't she doesn't have it.
00:03:14
Speaker
And I don't like to bad mouth actors and actresses like that.
00:03:18
Speaker
But she doesn't.
00:03:20
Speaker
It's hard to replace.
00:03:22
Speaker
And I'm just going to go ahead and say the role of Evie was kind of an iconic role.
00:03:26
Speaker
You know, you get an actress like Rachel Weisz, who crushed that role and performed so well.
00:03:33
Speaker
She and Brendan Fraser.
00:03:35
Speaker
And let's not also forget her brother, you know, the character's name of Jonathan.
00:03:40
Speaker
uh, John Hanna as that role, the three of them together.
00:03:43
Speaker
And then when you added in the second film, their son, like the four of them together, and then just go ahead and add in, um, Oh God, why can't I think of it?
00:03:52
Speaker
The, um,
00:03:53
Speaker
the guard, you know, the, the, uh, Egyptian guard from the desert.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:57
Speaker
I can't remember his name.
00:03:58
Speaker
He's, he's awesome.
00:03:59
Speaker
Uh, he's the gigolo and, uh, Bruce, Bruce, is it Bruce Bigelow male gigolo?
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:05
Speaker
Deuce Bigelow.
00:04:06
Speaker
Deuce Bigelow.
00:04:07
Speaker
Um, he's actually the main gigolo in that movie.
00:04:11
Speaker
Um, yeah, I'm totally blanking on names right now.
00:04:13
Speaker
Cause it's been a long week, but, and it's only Monday.
00:04:16
Speaker
Um, as we record this, it's already been a long week.
00:04:19
Speaker
Um,
00:04:20
Speaker
But them all together, just the way they fit in with each other, the way that they just play off each other, it's hard to just pull a lot of those pieces away and just either not bring any of them back or swap some of them around and think that you're just going to have magic.
00:04:39
Speaker
it just doesn't, it's not easy to do.
00:04:43
Speaker
And, and you can kind of see what happens when you try to do that and it, and it doesn't work.
00:04:49
Speaker
There's, there's kind of a, I actually have a list of, of actors that were changed out at different points.
00:04:55
Speaker
So like James Bond.
00:04:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:57
Speaker
But that's like, you know, that happens all the time.
00:04:59
Speaker
Batman has been played by a bunch of guys, Spider-Man, but in terms of actors who have been pulled out of, of series, Rachel Dawes in Batman Begins and the Dark Knight,
00:05:09
Speaker
James Rhodes, which I know
Character Replacements in Film: A Common Issue
00:05:11
Speaker
that you are not a fan of Don Cheadle in the MCU compared to what Terrence Howard started.
00:05:18
Speaker
Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs then became Julianne Moore in Hannibal.
00:05:24
Speaker
The Oracle was changed out in The Matrix, although I think they actually covered that really well with how they explained that.
00:05:29
Speaker
And it was the death of the actress.
00:05:31
Speaker
So that's obviously very tragic.
00:05:33
Speaker
And then switching out Ed Norton for Mark Ruffalo, another MCU one.
00:05:38
Speaker
You know, some of that list, you know, there were such different movies anyways that it...
00:05:46
Speaker
Silence of the Lambs is an all-time classic, so you were never really going to be able to replace Clarice Starling and just hope that it was going to catch fire in the same way.
00:05:55
Speaker
Game of Thrones switched out like 12 different actors, but that really wasn't the focus that anybody was on.
00:06:02
Speaker
It was just the craziness of that series that drew us in on that.
00:06:06
Speaker
So it's a tough task.
00:06:09
Speaker
it was probably always doomed to fail it as far as how that was going to work.
00:06:14
Speaker
And they should have figured out a way to get Rachel Weisz back in work, the script to a point that it would have made sense for her to come back.
00:06:22
Speaker
I also want to say she had given birth to a son, not, not long before this.
00:06:26
Speaker
So there's, there's that consideration too.
00:06:29
Speaker
But there's really, and, and knowing that I had felt that way about this movie coming into it, I was really paying
Critique of Writing and Character Development
00:06:35
Speaker
attention to the scenes where Rick and Evie were together and,
00:06:40
Speaker
they're just not written the same way either.
00:06:43
Speaker
So the opportunity for them to play well off of each other and show that, that bond that's been developing since, you know, what is it?
00:06:54
Speaker
I want to say the first film takes place in between the first and second world wars, if I'm not mistaken, it's kind of in that timeline.
00:07:00
Speaker
And then this takes place in like 46, I think, uh, 1947.
00:07:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, 47.
00:07:06
Speaker
And I don't remember when the first one is, but I but it's, you know, like post Second World War kind of there.
00:07:12
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think I think it's post First World War.
00:07:15
Speaker
So like, say, maybe the 20s, you know, it's quite a bit of time.
00:07:19
Speaker
They just didn't really give them the opportunity to show the progression of how things have gone for them.
00:07:24
Speaker
Now, if it was Rachel Weisz in that role, maybe it just would have naturally happened differently or they would have taken different cuts.
00:07:31
Speaker
They would have written it differently.
00:07:33
Speaker
But I just don't think the writing lent itself to cover for it.
00:07:39
Speaker
No, I think that's a really good point.
00:07:41
Speaker
And she's gone on record.
00:07:42
Speaker
Rachel Weiss is saying that, you know, they did try to say that they didn't have her back.
00:07:48
Speaker
They couldn't get her because of, you know, the baby.
00:07:51
Speaker
And she's like, well, I did two movies in that same time frame.
00:07:55
Speaker
I didn't like the script.
00:07:56
Speaker
That's why I didn't come back because they tried to play that off because during that time there was like a, well, wait, why isn't she coming back?
00:08:04
Speaker
So they did try to like,
00:08:06
Speaker
you know, kind of put a bandaid over it, so to speak, but she quickly shot that down.
00:08:13
Speaker
And you can kind of see why, as I'm sure we'll get into.
Revisiting Alex O'Connell: New Insights
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:19
Speaker
You know, um, but before we get into like the real nitty gritty, one person that I will give some credit to, um, who I remember a little bit more fondly this go around than I did the first one.
00:08:31
Speaker
Um, and he has not done anything.
00:08:34
Speaker
after this at all.
00:08:35
Speaker
This, this is his literal biggest movie ever, uh, is Luke Ford who plays Alex O'Connell.
00:08:42
Speaker
Now I don't remember the kid's name who played him in the mummy returns and he, he was great, but rewatching this, I actually felt like Luke Ford did.
00:08:54
Speaker
He was better than I remember.
00:08:56
Speaker
Cause I remember not really caring for him.
00:08:58
Speaker
Um, but I actually thought he was pretty darn good.
00:09:03
Speaker
I liked him.
00:09:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think I would have, I would have preferred, and the other actor's name is Freddie Both.
00:09:11
Speaker
I happen to have it in front of me here.
00:09:12
Speaker
Oh, there you go.
00:09:14
Speaker
I probably would have preferred to have him just because I feel like, and, and we've sort of talked about this, um, both on this show and, and on our friend Harrison show in the basement binge, when you get the opportunity to watch an entire film series in close proximity, you really do have a different relationship with that series than when you watched it just, you know, as it hit theaters and then you wait three years, four years, whatever it is, and you go see the next one.
00:09:40
Speaker
And,
00:09:42
Speaker
When you do watch these in succession, I feel like there's almost a closeness you have to the characters that you don't develop as easily.
00:09:55
Speaker
There are some films you will, no matter what.
00:09:57
Speaker
Your favorite films, you always will.
00:09:59
Speaker
But on films that maybe you like them, maybe you feel either way about it, when you do get the opportunity to just one after the other after the other within a span of a few weeks,
00:10:11
Speaker
I do feel like you have a different relationship with it.
00:10:13
Speaker
And I kind of noticed with this, I like having the gang all together.
00:10:18
Speaker
And I think where it really stood out the most for me, this phenomenon that I'm speaking of, is the Pirates of the Caribbean series when we got to the last one in the series.
00:10:27
Speaker
And it's not a great movie.
00:10:30
Speaker
It's really not.
00:10:30
Speaker
But I feel like just being able to have...
00:10:34
Speaker
the cast that we've watched through several films back together, doing that stuff together was, was special in a way that I don't know that if I would have waited that long, you know, long periods of time in between consuming those films, it wouldn't have hit the same way.
Supernatural Elements: Believability Issues
00:10:52
Speaker
But to your point on on Luke Ford, you know, listen, I buy him as the as the next sort of iteration of Alex that we saw early.
00:11:02
Speaker
And he certainly feels like a young version of Rick.
00:11:07
Speaker
It feels like they are father son.
00:11:09
Speaker
And they have some decent moments.
00:11:11
Speaker
There's some bad writing in here, by the way.
00:11:13
Speaker
And I think there's a couple of moments.
00:11:15
Speaker
Yeah, there's a couple of moments between the two of them that I wish were written better.
00:11:19
Speaker
But overall, I don't fault the actor for that.
00:11:24
Speaker
No, I think this movie suffers from some pretty bad writing.
00:11:31
Speaker
But in a franchise that's about resurrecting mummies from the dead and raising the army of Anubis, the thing that stuck out to me about this movie was...
00:11:49
Speaker
This one feels ridiculous.
00:11:51
Speaker
Like this one to me was the least believable of the stories.
00:11:58
Speaker
And that was that was surprising to me because, again, we you know, the army of Anubis pops up in the second one.
00:12:06
Speaker
And it's, you know,
00:12:08
Speaker
That final battle and not saying that the CGI is any better in it, because certainly the mummy returns is, you know, laughed out loud for its portrayal of the PlayStation two Scorpion King.
00:12:22
Speaker
But this movie, seven years later, I don't know how much of you, you caught of it, Rob, but if when the emperor first awakens and they're chasing, there's the, the chase down the street, the,
00:12:35
Speaker
The scene where Alex and the... Oh, God.
00:12:40
Speaker
Why am I forgetting her name?
00:12:43
Speaker
Lynn.
00:12:44
Speaker
Lynn.
00:12:46
Speaker
When they get thrown off to the side in the carriage, that is laughably game cut scene bad.
00:12:55
Speaker
Like old school.
00:12:56
Speaker
Like it was... It is so terrible.
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:01
Speaker
But even the Emperor turning into the three-headed dragon and then the, I don't know, what does he turn into at the end?
00:13:09
Speaker
What is that thing?
00:13:10
Speaker
some kind of like gorilla boar beast thing.
00:13:15
Speaker
He looks like the freaking character off the cover of the book of Where the Wild Things Are.
00:13:19
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:13:21
Speaker
Holy cow.
00:13:23
Speaker
Right?
00:13:23
Speaker
You just blew my mind.
00:13:26
Speaker
Like that's exactly what he freaking looks like.
00:13:28
Speaker
And I don't know what that thing's called, but.
00:13:30
Speaker
Like a manticore or something, I think.
00:13:32
Speaker
Yeah, manta shit.
00:13:34
Speaker
But like you, you have that.
00:13:38
Speaker
But not only that, it's like,
00:13:40
Speaker
And I remember they were in there, but then when the Yetis come in and it's like, what the hell are we doing?
00:13:49
Speaker
And again, that's for a series known for being like, well, this isn't supposed to be real, but like this one just felt like it pushed it way too much.
00:13:59
Speaker
And, and that's not even the biggest problem with the movie, but this was the least believable of them to me.
00:14:07
Speaker
You know, you kind of mentioned some of the visual effects.
00:14:10
Speaker
This movie comes out in 2008.
00:14:11
Speaker
And it's funny, I was talking about Pirates of the Caribbean
Unoriginal Plot Elements & Bad Writing
00:14:14
Speaker
earlier.
00:14:14
Speaker
I was actually thinking about that a lot because you have some similar types of effects with decaying bodies and things like that to what we saw, especially in the first Pirates movie that came out four years earlier than this.
00:14:28
Speaker
It looks way better, like way better.
00:14:32
Speaker
And that was very noticeable to me.
00:14:37
Speaker
You know, when you say this is the least believable, I found myself at different times going like the the Dragon Emperor Han.
00:14:46
Speaker
It's never really clear what his power set actually is.
00:14:50
Speaker
Like, it just seems like, you know, you know, he makes ice, he makes fire, he can make things float.
00:14:56
Speaker
He can kind of use the force a little bit.
00:14:58
Speaker
He can turn in all these animals.
00:14:59
Speaker
Like they never really narrowed down what his abilities actually are.
00:15:04
Speaker
And I found myself watching it, like making note of that in my head.
00:15:07
Speaker
And then I also found myself not even really caring.
00:15:11
Speaker
Like it didn't feel like it, it was important enough to me to actually be bothered by it.
00:15:16
Speaker
If that makes sense.
00:15:19
Speaker
Well, that's, I mean, that's pretty good.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, I don't mind that at all, actually.
00:15:31
Speaker
So, obviously, too, I mean, this movie with Alex discovering the Emperor.
00:15:41
Speaker
Oh, I'm sorry.
00:15:42
Speaker
I want to backtrack really quick.
00:15:45
Speaker
And maybe it was just me.
00:15:47
Speaker
But this opening narration, and the first two movies had them, but man, this one felt longer.
00:15:56
Speaker
It felt longer, and it felt so unimportant.
00:16:00
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of what happens kind of feels unimportant.
00:16:05
Speaker
And you kind of mentioned a few times, and we haven't really just addressed it, I think, straight on, how much this borrows from the ideas of the first movie.
00:16:15
Speaker
And I'm going to describe a plot loosely.
00:16:18
Speaker
So you have a ruler.
00:16:21
Speaker
who likes a girl who does not particularly like him back, but, but likes his Lieutenant instead.
00:16:27
Speaker
And there's terrible CG, which of these movies that I just described.
00:16:33
Speaker
Oh, wait, it's all of them.
00:16:36
Speaker
And it's just kind of like, it's like they wanted to distance themselves from the first two to be different, but then kept,
00:16:46
Speaker
too like you kept too much.
00:16:49
Speaker
Like I didn't need the guardian over.
00:16:53
Speaker
Like I didn't need all of that.
00:16:54
Speaker
I didn't need someone protecting.
00:16:56
Speaker
I didn't need.
00:16:58
Speaker
I mean, that was derivative of the first two.
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:01
Speaker
I didn't need the, I didn't need that really, really poorly acted scene between Alex and Lynn.
00:17:12
Speaker
Um,
00:17:13
Speaker
where she's like, well, you don't like a girl that can knock you on your ass or however she says it.
00:17:18
Speaker
I was like, come on.
00:17:19
Speaker
Like, geez, this is, this is fricking middle school shit.
00:17:23
Speaker
Like this is 100%.
00:17:25
Speaker
Like that's not how adults fricking talk to each other anymore.
00:17:29
Speaker
That's not how two grown people like I'm, I wasn't around in 1947, but yeah,
00:17:38
Speaker
I guarantee you that is not how men talk to women in 1947.
00:17:45
Speaker
I don't think so either.
00:17:46
Speaker
I wasn't around for it either, and neither were my parents.
00:17:50
Speaker
So it's hard for me to imagine that that's real.
00:17:53
Speaker
I hated that scene.
00:17:56
Speaker
One scene before that, you get an equally bad scene between Alex and his mom, Evie, where they're talking about the number of experiences he's had.
00:18:05
Speaker
The whole thing is cringy.
00:18:07
Speaker
It's awful.
00:18:08
Speaker
It's wooden.
00:18:09
Speaker
Nobody talks this way.
00:18:11
Speaker
It is so unnatural.
00:18:12
Speaker
I cannot...
00:18:13
Speaker
imagine having that conversation with my mom or having that conversation with my children or literally anybody I know having that conversation with their parents or their children.
00:18:25
Speaker
It's a terrible scene.
00:18:26
Speaker
It's so poorly written.
00:18:27
Speaker
And then it immediately follows up or it immediately is preceded by the scene you were describing that is also somehow worse and also terribly written.
Lazy Filmmaking and Fan Goodwill
00:18:38
Speaker
Overall, like if I really have to just break this down,
00:18:42
Speaker
This film overall, just to sum it up, doesn't really do anything remarkable or special.
00:18:50
Speaker
And it has some very lazy filmmaking throughout.
00:18:53
Speaker
And it predominantly relies on our goodwill towards this franchise.
00:18:57
Speaker
And it takes the audience's loyalty to this franchise for granted.
00:19:03
Speaker
It never really appreciates the audience.
00:19:07
Speaker
Just says, yeah, you guys like The Mummy, so we're just going to do this.
00:19:12
Speaker
And here you go.
00:19:14
Speaker
Even Rick isn't as charming in this movie.
00:19:19
Speaker
And I don't necessarily think it's his fault.
00:19:22
Speaker
Cause I, I do think he has a couple of good moments.
00:19:25
Speaker
I do think when, um, you know, he's sitting there talking to Evie and he's, he's like, well, it's implied I'm his father.
00:19:35
Speaker
Um,
00:19:36
Speaker
Cause let's face it.
00:19:38
Speaker
That's very much, you know, probably back in that day as well.
00:19:42
Speaker
That's very much true.
00:19:43
Speaker
Um, you know, that, that felt very real.
00:19:47
Speaker
It, I did also think it was funny when he was like, you put down one mummy dad.
00:19:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:53
Speaker
One same mummy twice.
00:19:54
Speaker
Like, okay, there's, there's, there's Rick.
00:19:57
Speaker
Um, even the beginning when he goes and he just gets sick of it and he goes and shoots the fish.
00:20:03
Speaker
Um, um,
00:20:04
Speaker
I was like, okay, like, yeah, that's, that's Rick.
Maria Bello's Performance: Impact on Film Quality
00:20:10
Speaker
But that whole, that whole joke in the beginning where he goes and shoots the fish is ruined because my God, again, I, I hate to say anything about an actor or an actress, but Maria de Bello, she's so fricking wooden.
00:20:30
Speaker
It, she's, she is a plank for God's sakes.
00:20:35
Speaker
Like every scene that she's in, even when she sits there and is like, oh, we're going to have a family meeting.
00:20:40
Speaker
How often, like, how, how well do you know this girl?
00:20:44
Speaker
And then when she's talking to her beforehand, I'm like, you are, you
00:20:48
Speaker
Like, you look like you're going to crack your cheekbones trying to emote.
00:20:52
Speaker
Like, loosen the frig up.
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, there's... And again, a lot of that, I think, is the fact that the scenes and the dialogue are pretty poorly written.
00:21:04
Speaker
They're not based on how real people talk.
00:21:07
Speaker
And...
00:21:10
Speaker
And everything always comes back to Star Wars, right?
00:21:11
Speaker
So you look at episode two, which is the worst film in the franchise, and you look at how bad the scenes are between Anakin and Padme.
00:21:22
Speaker
And for a while, that stink actually hung on both of those actors that people thought maybe it was them.
00:21:28
Speaker
And we've seen them both in other things forever.
00:21:32
Speaker
You know, Natalie Portman is incredibly talented.
00:21:34
Speaker
She kind of brushed that stink off a little bit faster.
00:21:37
Speaker
And then you actually look at the dialogue in that film and you see how just ungodly bad it is.
00:21:43
Speaker
I think there's a little bit of that in place here where you don't like if there's not a lot of chemistry between the cast involved and then you give them the.
00:21:54
Speaker
you know, bad dialogue to work with.
00:21:56
Speaker
You're making a bad meal with bad ingredients and it tastes like shit.
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, exactly.
00:22:08
Speaker
But you know what the funny thing is?
00:22:12
Speaker
We were talking about all of this, but I found myself not hating this.
00:22:19
Speaker
And I found myself saying,
00:22:22
Speaker
It's at least not as bad as I remember.
00:22:25
Speaker
Because I remember this, at least in my opinion, I remember this being downright awful.
00:22:35
Speaker
And I didn't feel it was downright awful.
00:22:38
Speaker
I still don't think it's a good movie, but it is not the dumpster fire that I remember.
00:22:46
Speaker
Oh, we've definitely reviewed worse movies than this, for sure.
00:22:51
Speaker
And there is...
00:22:52
Speaker
you know, going ahead to try to give this a little more, more credit.
Potential for a Sequel: Franchise Revival Trends
00:22:58
Speaker
There is something kind of magical when Brendan Fraser is portraying Rick O'Connell and he's chasing supernatural bad guys through the streets.
00:23:06
Speaker
Like that's just, there's something about that setup, even though we've seen it before, that just really, this just really works for me.
00:23:18
Speaker
it kind of makes you wish that there was, there was more, you know, I, it, again, a lot of this is derivative so much so that when I went to put the Blu-ray in my Xbox to start it, the Xbox wouldn't even load it.
00:23:32
Speaker
It's, I think it was trying to save me from this movie, which, yeah,
00:23:36
Speaker
Is it to say again, it's the worst movie I've seen this year, but I kind of feel like my Xbox is like, are you, are you sure you want to do this?
00:23:43
Speaker
Like, I'm just going to kind of like not load the Blu-ray app for a while to make you like really sure that you, you want to do this.
00:23:51
Speaker
I kind of felt like, you know, whatever AI Microsoft is working on was kind of like, listen, we, we're going to cover you on this one.
00:24:00
Speaker
We made the joke kind of when we were doing our halo review yesterday, but
00:24:05
Speaker
that, uh, as we were previewing this episode, that, uh, the late Roger Ebert is even quoted on the back of this Blu-ray is saying that it is the best in the series.
00:24:15
Speaker
Um, most people can't name three movie critics.
00:24:19
Speaker
And if you can name two, it's probably Siskel and Ebert.
00:24:23
Speaker
Um,
00:24:24
Speaker
And Ebert probably being the most famous because even after Gene Siskel passed, he carried on with... Is it Roper?
00:24:31
Speaker
I'm trying to remember Roper's first name.
00:24:33
Speaker
It was Roper and Ebert for a while.
00:24:35
Speaker
And Roger's now passed.
00:24:39
Speaker
Probably the most famous film critic in the world.
00:24:41
Speaker
And he liked it.
00:24:43
Speaker
And I'm not saying I have agreed with every one of his reviews because I certainly haven't.
00:24:46
Speaker
But man, to go out on a limb and call this the best of the series...
00:24:53
Speaker
It's not in the top two.
00:24:56
Speaker
It's absolutely not.
00:24:58
Speaker
You can rank the first two in any order you want.
00:25:01
Speaker
This movie just simply is not better than the first two.
00:25:05
Speaker
No.
00:25:07
Speaker
I mean, for sure it's not.
00:25:09
Speaker
I mean, great for him if he really got that much enjoyment out of it.
00:25:15
Speaker
But...
00:25:17
Speaker
You know, I mean, and they certainly and this is something we've talked about.
00:25:21
Speaker
They certainly hint at a fourth movie with where how this ends.
00:25:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:28
Speaker
And I know there was a lot that happened with Brendan Fraser, but man, it just, you know, with everything that's come back after all of these years, Ghostbusters, Halloween, all of these, you know, all of these movies that have had a resurrection, so to speak.
00:25:45
Speaker
I mean, the biggest example of that is Top Gun Maverick.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:50
Speaker
And obviously it's only a sequel.
00:25:52
Speaker
It doesn't have multiple, multiple.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:55
Speaker
But, you know, it's funny you mentioned a bunch that I had actually made a little bit of a list and I didn't I somehow missed those ones, too.
00:26:03
Speaker
But you think about the amount of time in between trilogies of Star Wars.
00:26:07
Speaker
Indiana Jones went away for a long time and came back with a fourth, went away for a long time, came back with a fifth.
00:26:13
Speaker
Jurassic Park went away for a long time, came back with a new trilogy, might be coming back with more.
00:26:19
Speaker
Aliens has taken a lot of time off and released, you know, new entries.
00:26:23
Speaker
The Predator series has released, you know, taking a long time.
00:26:27
Speaker
Probably released, maybe, which...
00:26:30
Speaker
many people say is it's, you know, it's obviously the best entry since the original.
00:26:35
Speaker
And I, some people actually say that it's better than the original, but I mean, it was really good listeners.
00:26:45
Speaker
If you haven't checked out our review of it, we published it, what two summers ago, whenever it was go listen to that.
00:26:49
Speaker
It's a great movie and actually go watch that movie too.
00:26:52
Speaker
And the matrix, you know, they took a long time off in between and came back and they probably shouldn't have come back because that was not worth coming back for.
00:26:59
Speaker
There is there is a world where they can release a fourth actual mummy series, not counting the Scorpion King is, you know, it's part of the saga.
00:27:08
Speaker
But, you know, true mummy films, you can bring Rachel Weisz back.
00:27:13
Speaker
You can just do it.
00:27:14
Speaker
You can just decide we all want it like you can just bring her back.
00:27:18
Speaker
You can bring Brendan Fraser back, bring John Hanna back as Jonathan, bring whichever one of the Alex's back you want.
00:27:28
Speaker
And and, you know, what was this, 2008 when this came out?
00:27:31
Speaker
So, you know, if you really wanted to spin it kind of forward, you could easily set the next movie in the 50s.
00:27:37
Speaker
You could set it in the 60s.
00:27:38
Speaker
You could give it kind of a Cold War vibe.
00:27:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:41
Speaker
you know, which is kind of what Indy four did, I guess.
00:27:44
Speaker
And this movie definitely borrows a lot from the Holy grail.
00:27:48
Speaker
You know, we haven't really talked about Michelle yo very much, but she definitely has a grail night kind of vibe to her point to like her character.
00:27:55
Speaker
I was definitely waiting for her to tell someone they chose, uh,
00:27:59
Speaker
poorly, never happened.
00:28:02
Speaker
You could easily do that.
00:28:04
Speaker
You could send them to ancient Sumer.
00:28:06
Speaker
You could send them to, well, at the end of the movie, they say soon after mummies were found in Peru.
00:28:11
Speaker
You could easily send them to South America or Central America.
00:28:14
Speaker
There's so many different mythologies and stories that you can tell in so many other parts of the world.
00:28:22
Speaker
I'd be there tomorrow if they released it.
00:28:26
Speaker
You know, you could pull and what was surprising to me is the fact that it didn't get, and who knows?
Brendan Fraser's Career & Possible Return
00:28:34
Speaker
I mean, I don't know if there were talks or anything like that, but when, you know, especially when Brendan Frazier had his, his comeback and, you know, the whale was huge and, you know, people were interested to see him in, um,
00:28:51
Speaker
and Batgirl before that, you know, got scrapped and everything like that.
00:28:56
Speaker
Um, it seemed like the perfect time to capitalize on that.
00:29:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:05
Speaker
I mean, if you look at all the franchises getting, um, getting these reboots being brought back out of, out of the dustbin, um, you know, Ghostbusters, I think is a great example of that.
00:29:16
Speaker
It's one that I hadn't even really thought of.
00:29:18
Speaker
It,
00:29:19
Speaker
That's sorry.
00:29:20
Speaker
That's exactly what I was going to say is you could almost even pull with this series.
00:29:25
Speaker
If you really wanted to, you could pull a Ghostbusters with this and you could set it very far into the future where he's he's older.
00:29:37
Speaker
And if you wanted to try and pass this franchise on.
00:29:42
Speaker
You could totally do something with that.
00:29:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:47
Speaker
You'd have to have the right cast, the right actors that people would follow that could lead that franchise into the future.
00:29:55
Speaker
Um, but there's no reason that Brendan Fraser can't keep, you know, dual wielding revolvers and pistols and machine guns and, you know, getting himself into all kinds of crazy sort of, uh, situations that you don't know how he can get out of it.
00:30:10
Speaker
And yet somehow he does, um,
00:30:14
Speaker
I'd watch him as the lead of it for years to come.
00:30:18
Speaker
I think if he decides he wants to do it, if there's enough people out there who want to do it,
00:30:23
Speaker
I mean, with all the different streaming services that exist right now that are trying to justify their existence to the consumer who has to decide, especially as password sharing gets harder and harder and gets cracked down more and more, these streaming services are really going to be fighting very hard for, you know, listen, inflation is not getting any better.
00:30:44
Speaker
You know, the crunch on the average American household is not getting any easier anytime soon.
00:30:49
Speaker
I don't I don't think it will.
00:30:51
Speaker
I think these extra streaming services are the things that are going to go by the wayside.
00:30:55
Speaker
And if I'm, I don't know, Paramount Plus, let's say, and I don't have a ton of marquee programming, if I'm Peacock and I don't necessarily have a ton of marquee programming and I'm relying mostly on back catalog stuff, why not?
00:31:15
Speaker
Why not?
00:31:16
Speaker
Throw some money at something like this.
00:31:18
Speaker
Get people excited.
00:31:20
Speaker
Do you remember like his weirdest thing after this was because again, he went away for a while.
00:31:31
Speaker
And certainly there are plenty of stories as to as to why.
00:31:35
Speaker
Remember his weird like 30 second appearance in G.I.
00:31:41
Speaker
Joe, the rise of Cobra.
00:31:44
Speaker
No, I don't even remember that.
00:31:46
Speaker
Yep.
00:31:47
Speaker
He, he literally has like a 15 second scene where, uh, Duke Channing Tatum is fighting snake eyes.
00:31:56
Speaker
Um, and he, he takes snake eyes down and one of the team members, I think it's, I forgot who, but he's like, I've never seen snake eyes take a hit.
00:32:06
Speaker
And literally Brennan Fraser just goes, they're Joe's it's that's his line.
00:32:12
Speaker
That's his part in the movie.
00:32:13
Speaker
And boom, done.
00:32:16
Speaker
Like he shows up in that movie for all of what I just described and he's never seen again.
00:32:25
Speaker
So it was kind of weird.
00:32:26
Speaker
It was like one of his last things he did before he made his comeback was he just randomly showed up in G.I.
00:32:31
Speaker
Joe, the rise of Cobra.
00:32:33
Speaker
It's an odd film to choose.
00:32:36
Speaker
Right?
00:32:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:37
Speaker
It's almost like he was meant to do more or he was supposed to be in the sequel and then everything happened.
00:32:43
Speaker
Like, you know, maybe he was supposed to be Bruce Willis's character in the sequel or whatever the case may be.
00:32:49
Speaker
But I always found that weird that he showed up like,
00:32:55
Speaker
he showed up in that movie just for that short amount of time.
00:32:57
Speaker
But sometimes cameos just get to be straight up distracting.
00:33:01
Speaker
Like you focus more on the fact of who the person is than, than what, like it pulls you out of the movie.
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:33:09
Speaker
Um, but again, the, the weird thing is, is just getting back to this is we've talked about bad CGI.
Wasted Opportunities: Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh
00:33:21
Speaker
There's bad dialogue.
00:33:23
Speaker
Um,
00:33:25
Speaker
The fights.
00:33:29
Speaker
I'll go a step further than that.
00:33:31
Speaker
They're bad.
00:33:32
Speaker
So you get this fight between Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh's characters.
00:33:37
Speaker
It's a total and complete waste of two of the most popular martial arts film stars of the last 30 years.
00:33:43
Speaker
It's nothing special.
00:33:44
Speaker
It's mostly slow motion.
00:33:48
Speaker
Isn't that weird though?
00:33:50
Speaker
Isn't that weird?
00:33:50
Speaker
Because they did the same thing.
00:33:52
Speaker
And I remember thinking the same thing.
00:33:56
Speaker
And our friend Harrison over at the basement binge, we talked about this where in GI Joe snake eyes origins, they had legit martial artists on that movie and,
00:34:13
Speaker
And it's all rapid editing cuts.
00:34:15
Speaker
And it's like, you have two people who can actually do this.
00:34:20
Speaker
Why aren't you filming it?
00:34:23
Speaker
Like, why aren't you letting them do this?
00:34:25
Speaker
Because they can.
00:34:28
Speaker
I remember the first time I saw Jet Li, this would have been, I was in high school when Lethal Weapon 4 came out.
00:34:34
Speaker
And this was before I'd started martial arts training.
00:34:38
Speaker
So I hadn't really gotten into my Jet Li movie obsession phase that I spent a good bit of the...
00:34:44
Speaker
you know, early to late two thousands.
00:34:47
Speaker
I was just, you know, would consume everything of his that I could.
00:34:51
Speaker
I remember seeing him in lethal weapon four, and I remember seeing the way he fought.
00:34:55
Speaker
And I remember feeling like that's not a human being.
00:34:58
Speaker
That's a non new Tony and fluid in white PJs.
00:35:02
Speaker
That is somehow, uh,
00:35:03
Speaker
able to recite lines.
00:35:05
Speaker
Like he's a liquid.
00:35:06
Speaker
That's, that's not a person that's like, how is that even possible?
00:35:10
Speaker
And this was even before wire work was a huge thing.
00:35:12
Speaker
So I don't, I don't know how much of it was wires.
00:35:14
Speaker
I don't think they did much if any.
00:35:17
Speaker
And, and I know that Jet Li's had some, some knee issues over the course of his career.
00:35:22
Speaker
And I don't know if that was part of the consideration here, but at least get stunt doubles to, to do the back, you know, the stuff there's even if
00:35:30
Speaker
You don't want to have him do some of the big aerial kicks and things like that.
00:35:34
Speaker
The two of them have done some just dozens of films with really tight wing chung, you know, close combat hand to hand stuff that they just didn't do here.
00:35:45
Speaker
It's almost like the action choreographer had never seen either of them do anything in a previous movie.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:53
Speaker
I was really disappointed by it.
00:35:55
Speaker
There's not a moment where you're like, oh, wow, that was creative.
00:35:58
Speaker
And that's one of the things I love most about really good Kung Fu choreography in film is when you see something unique, you see just a quick moment of something that you've never been presented before.
00:36:11
Speaker
Yeah, there's going to be a lot of the same combinations and things like that.
00:36:15
Speaker
But when they do something just out of nowhere that you've just never seen that take or that setup or that...
00:36:22
Speaker
series of combinations or the way they use an environment in a certain way.
00:36:26
Speaker
That's what I love is when somebody really digs into their creativity for choreography, there's nothing creative or special or unique about this.
00:36:35
Speaker
We never get Jet Li doing any Jet Li things.
00:36:39
Speaker
We never get Michelle Yeoh doing what she's good at.
00:36:43
Speaker
And it feels like a waste of both of these talented actors' abilities.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, no, it definitely does.
00:36:53
Speaker
It feels like Jet Li was really wasted in this role.
00:36:57
Speaker
He's there for his name.
00:36:58
Speaker
Yes, he's there for his name.
Derivative Characters & Redundant Plot Elements
00:37:01
Speaker
And, you know, one of the other things you said, like, you know, this movie relies on the first two and it kind of just takes the fact of, okay, well, you love it, so we're taking advantage of it.
00:37:17
Speaker
And when they...
00:37:18
Speaker
Again, but I still can't say this movie is terrible.
00:37:20
Speaker
I've certainly I have watched and I'm not talking like those stupid B movies or C movies that I love to watch, like Velocipastor and things like that.
00:37:32
Speaker
That's not even a C movie.
00:37:33
Speaker
That's like, I know that's a that's an M or an L movie.
00:37:36
Speaker
Like.
00:37:37
Speaker
I'm not talking about those.
00:37:38
Speaker
Like I've watched mainstream major motion releases that are worse than this.
00:37:44
Speaker
I, I would go as far as to say that the 2017 mummy movie with Tom Cruise is worse than this one.
00:37:52
Speaker
I like, so again, I, I still can't bring myself to say this is terrible, which is again, a far cry from what I remember this movie being.
00:38:03
Speaker
Um, but,
00:38:05
Speaker
but their, their reliance on the audience and their, the goodwill that they think they have, um, when they do do, when they do copy things.
00:38:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:17
Speaker
So mad dog.
00:38:19
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:20
Speaker
Is he not Winston from the first movie?
00:38:23
Speaker
Is he not?
00:38:24
Speaker
Is he from the second movie?
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:26
Speaker
But here's the thing.
00:38:29
Speaker
Winston in the first movie, he doesn't get a big part, but I actually liked him.
00:38:35
Speaker
I actually was like, oh, like, that sucks.
00:38:40
Speaker
Rick lost a friend in the first movie when Winston dies.
00:38:47
Speaker
Izzy is at least funny in the second movie.
00:38:51
Speaker
He's a goofball.
00:38:52
Speaker
He's funny.
00:38:53
Speaker
It feels like him and Rick had some pretty good adventures.
00:38:58
Speaker
What?
00:38:59
Speaker
You know, Mad Dog because...
00:39:02
Speaker
Like, no offense.
00:39:03
Speaker
Like, and it's that typical stupid, like, macho guy shit.
00:39:07
Speaker
What the hell are you mad at Alex for?
00:39:09
Speaker
Your wife's the one that just went around flaunting her shit.
00:39:12
Speaker
Like, you get the typical, like, even says, like, oh, I gotta give him a thrash in O'Connell.
00:39:20
Speaker
Like, knock it off.
00:39:21
Speaker
Like, why are you mad at him?
00:39:23
Speaker
Like, but he's a copy of the first two, but he's not as good.
00:39:31
Speaker
You know, Ling's mom is a copy of Ode Faire's character.
00:39:37
Speaker
That's the actor's name.
00:39:40
Speaker
And here's the thing.
00:39:42
Speaker
She's not as good.
00:39:45
Speaker
Everything is a copy.
00:39:48
Speaker
The.
00:39:51
Speaker
you know, oh, Ardeth Bay, I'm sorry, is the actor's name.
00:39:54
Speaker
He plays Ode Fair in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.
00:39:58
Speaker
Even Jet Li, because his name is wasted, is, you know, again, he's an extension of Arnold Voslow, who really has a much better performance than Jet Li.
00:40:14
Speaker
Much better.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:18
Speaker
And this is like not even asking Jet Li to I don't think he had his character speaks any English in this.
00:40:25
Speaker
You know, he really doesn't at this stage of his career didn't have phenomenal English.
00:40:30
Speaker
I'm trying to remember what movie it was.
00:40:31
Speaker
It was it was one of his first movies that was actually shot in the U.S. for a U.S. audience and not dubbed from a Chinese audience film to bring over.
00:40:43
Speaker
Um, they actually were like, he had an English coach that was giving him his lines in his ear, um, with the pronunciation before he went on set, uh, to repeat them.
00:40:52
Speaker
So, you know,
00:40:54
Speaker
I'm always amazed by people who can speak multiple languages.
00:40:57
Speaker
I struggle with English often enough.
00:40:59
Speaker
So like, you know, God bless them for, for being able to do that.
00:41:03
Speaker
That's, that's pretty impressive.
00:41:04
Speaker
And, you know, Michelle Yeohs always had phenomenal, you know, everything.
00:41:10
Speaker
Just, I think she's fantastic.
00:41:11
Speaker
And I wish that we would get more.
00:41:12
Speaker
And it actually seems like Hollywood's kind of figured out Michelle Yeohs awesome.
00:41:16
Speaker
Cause it seems like she's getting a lot of work lately.
00:41:19
Speaker
And that's good.
00:41:20
Speaker
And I also like the fact that she's getting work that doesn't rely on the fact that she's a martial arts star.
00:41:25
Speaker
She can just be a good actress and not have to, you know, also do Kung Fu to be able to be allowed in a movie.
00:41:33
Speaker
So, you know, I like that, too.
00:41:36
Speaker
There's a. But you're right, there's there's a lot of things that are just kind of rehashes or.
00:41:44
Speaker
it's a copy of the first film with a loss of fidelity.
00:41:47
Speaker
You know, you remember when, when everybody had scanners and you could like set the dots per, per inch, you know, what kind of resolution you wanted.
00:41:55
Speaker
It's a very low resolution scan in many cases of, of the first two movies of what worked.
00:42:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:01
Speaker
And it's, again, it's a shame because you've, again, we've seen way worse movies than this, but it just, um,
00:42:12
Speaker
And let me be clear
Original Films: Strong Cast & Chemistry
00:42:14
Speaker
here.
00:42:14
Speaker
The Mummy and The Mummy Returns are in no way, shape or form high bar movies.
00:42:23
Speaker
They're just not.
00:42:24
Speaker
They are not.
00:42:26
Speaker
Oh, my God, dialogue.
00:42:28
Speaker
They are not.
00:42:29
Speaker
Oh, my God, story.
00:42:30
Speaker
They are none of that.
00:42:32
Speaker
Those movies are carried on the power of casting.
00:42:39
Speaker
Because they are charismatic.
00:42:42
Speaker
They are fun.
00:42:43
Speaker
They are believable.
00:42:45
Speaker
They are charming as hell.
00:42:47
Speaker
And that's almost every single person that is a main character in those movies pulls their weight.
00:42:55
Speaker
Yes, Rick and Evie are the stars of the first one.
00:42:59
Speaker
But Emotep is exciting.
00:43:02
Speaker
He's threatening.
00:43:04
Speaker
Jonathan is interesting.
00:43:07
Speaker
Like,
00:43:11
Speaker
So it's not like the first two are like these masterpieces of cinema in forms of storytelling, but the cast pulls everything through.
00:43:23
Speaker
And again, this movie for whatever reason, because again, it's, it's not just because Rachel Weisz is there.
00:43:31
Speaker
It's, it can't be all her absence.
00:43:34
Speaker
I can't imagine you stick her in this movie and,
00:43:38
Speaker
And it's a hundred times better.
00:43:40
Speaker
Yes.
00:43:41
Speaker
Do I think it would be better?
00:43:43
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:43:48
Speaker
But the, for whatever, even Brendan Frazier to a degree, like I said, he has a couple of moments.
Lack of Enthusiasm in 'Tomb of the Dragon Emperor'
00:43:54
Speaker
but the cast does not seem into it.
00:43:58
Speaker
And we've talked about that several times when, when the cast looks like they're having, they had a good time on set and they liked being around each other.
00:44:08
Speaker
And sometimes you need the friction.
00:44:09
Speaker
You know, I, several actors have talked about that before.
00:44:16
Speaker
But it just, you don't get the same feeling that everybody loved being a part of this entry.
00:44:24
Speaker
Yeah, you don't get a lot of those Rick O'Connell moments where it's just like, ah, that's our hero.
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah, no.
00:44:33
Speaker
It doesn't exist in the same way.
00:44:36
Speaker
Something we didn't get a chance to talk about, it stood out to me.
00:44:39
Speaker
Very early into this movie, we have Alex that is looking for this tomb, and he eventually finds it.
00:44:46
Speaker
I wonder if...
00:44:47
Speaker
Two things very much stand out to me.
00:44:49
Speaker
At what point do all these bow strings that have been sitting there for hundreds of years just eventually dry rot or decay to the point where they don't work anymore?
00:44:59
Speaker
All these ancient traps, all these ropes and everything else just never stop working.
00:45:03
Speaker
They all work flawlessly every time, which has always been funny to me.
00:45:07
Speaker
But then what really stood out is they just witnessed pretty much their entire team get killed by all these traps and
00:45:13
Speaker
And instead of like recovering the dead and carrying them back to camp and waiting to get them properly buried, they're like, well, let's just press on, I guess.
00:45:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:23
Speaker
The very next scene is him trying to get with that girl.
00:45:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:27
Speaker
Very, you know, kind of heartless.
00:45:29
Speaker
Like your whole team just died.
00:45:30
Speaker
You're just going to leave them there.
00:45:31
Speaker
Like, well, let's go find the treasure.
00:45:33
Speaker
Let's go find the tomb.
00:45:35
Speaker
I know that just kind of stood out to me.
00:45:36
Speaker
Kind of funny.
00:45:38
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, it's but boy, that actually has one of my like last thoughts is that has such terrible editing where the guy is.
00:45:50
Speaker
So the guy that gets shot in the back with the arrows and then the other guy that gets hit with the razor, you know, the spinning razor saw.
00:46:01
Speaker
How are those two in the same row?
00:46:05
Speaker
Because they're both laying dead in the same row.
00:46:08
Speaker
And the way that shot is cut and filmed, they're not running in the same row at all.
00:46:14
Speaker
So how are they?
00:46:16
Speaker
How are they dead in the same line?
00:46:19
Speaker
I didn't catch that because of how bad the buzzsaw looked.
00:46:22
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:46:23
Speaker
I just was like, Oh, what about when it, what about when it turns, when it spins, when it spins, it's even worse when it, when it somehow spins to miss Alex, like, like the buzzsaw said, Oh shit.
00:46:36
Speaker
Like, like I'm not supposed to hit you.
00:46:39
Speaker
Like, why would the buzzsaw curve like that?
00:46:44
Speaker
Why is it not shot in a straight line?
00:46:47
Speaker
Cause the other one is,
00:46:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's an excellent question.
00:46:52
Speaker
Like, yeah, it's not a good answer.
00:46:55
Speaker
It's plot armor.
00:46:58
Speaker
But yeah, it's just I was like, oh, my God, like the shots are so bad.
00:47:04
Speaker
Even that first, my God, that first quick cut.
00:47:10
Speaker
In that opening, I was like, oh, my God, like you can't show.
00:47:16
Speaker
Like you're having a hard time showing someone throw a kick here.
00:47:19
Speaker
Like, geez almighty.
00:47:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:22
Speaker
And some of the, some of the other like decisions on, so they, they get to the area where they're going to ambush the army coming in and, and they're, they're on, they're in the Himalayas, they're in the mountains and they're like, okay, well, if they get too close, we're just going to blow this up.
00:47:38
Speaker
Why do you even have to go through that?
00:47:40
Speaker
Just get there before them, set the bomb, blow it up, run away before they even get there.
00:47:45
Speaker
Like, I didn't understand why they couldn't just do that.
00:47:47
Speaker
They had to wait to have the gunfight.
00:47:49
Speaker
And then when they realized they were going to be overrun, then blow it up.
00:47:52
Speaker
Like they never really defined why they were just going to leave it there.
00:47:55
Speaker
Well, and it's,
00:47:57
Speaker
Go, sorry, go ahead.
00:47:58
Speaker
Cause it's the same thing as another point I'll bring up, but you, you continue.
00:48:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:02
Speaker
So then shortly after that, we realized Lynn has the ability to just door dash a whole bunch of yetis to come in and help them.
00:48:09
Speaker
It's just like, if you had access to these allies, you didn't want to include them in the, in the plot or like in the plan in the first place.
00:48:17
Speaker
Like it feels like having allies like that.
00:48:19
Speaker
It's, it's almost as bad as when Nick Fury waits for,
00:48:23
Speaker
until he's turned into dust to pull out the magic pager to pull in Captain Marvel from space.
00:48:28
Speaker
So I can think of at least five times in the MCU timeline, you would have used that if you had actually access to it before this, that it doesn't make sense why you didn't.
00:48:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:37
Speaker
Well, you know, it's just like, and they do this in the first, you know, they do this in the second movie.
00:48:43
Speaker
It's more so apparent in the second movie, but you know, when Alex is like, you know,
00:48:50
Speaker
when he's flirting with her, when she's standing there and she's like, we could do that or we could save your parents, but then we'll proceed to wait 10 goddamn minutes to do anything and let them get close.
00:49:04
Speaker
Let them open up the fricking.
00:49:07
Speaker
What's it called?
00:49:09
Speaker
Um, God, God, what's the artifact?
00:49:11
Speaker
Um,
00:49:12
Speaker
That's a diamond thing.
00:49:14
Speaker
I have Shangri-La.
00:49:15
Speaker
Let them, let them cut my mother's finger.
00:49:18
Speaker
Let them get it close to the emperor.
00:49:20
Speaker
Even though I know that's what it is.
00:49:24
Speaker
And I'm sorry.
00:49:26
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:49:27
Speaker
If you have been protecting the emperor for 2000 years, one, why would you let anybody get as close as they did to actually get down into the tomb?
00:49:39
Speaker
It's just and again, it's it's funny because this is what happens in the first two movies, but you don't give a shit because the performances are so good.
00:49:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:49
Speaker
Why do you let them get that far down?
00:49:51
Speaker
Why do you let them get that close to the emperor?
00:49:53
Speaker
And how are you stupid enough to not realize that the one in the goddamn coffin is a decoy?
00:50:01
Speaker
I guarantee you, you should know that.
00:50:05
Speaker
Yeah, for 2000 years and she didn't figure any of that out.
00:50:07
Speaker
I mean, she's not quite as inept as the Magi are because they definitely make some really piss poor decisions that come back to bite them.
00:50:14
Speaker
But it's not far off.
00:50:16
Speaker
And again, like her whole role is pretty much just what they were doing.
00:50:21
Speaker
Only they're they're all kind of bad at it.
00:50:23
Speaker
You would think when you've got that much time to be able to do it, like.
00:50:27
Speaker
I mean, how many times are they binging the office on streaming as opposed to actually doing their job?
00:50:38
Speaker
As soon as someone even gets close, sabotage the freaking camp.
00:50:45
Speaker
So it's either you're expecting them to die, which is really cool of you.
00:50:51
Speaker
Like, oh, these booby traps will get them.
00:50:53
Speaker
So even if they get into the tomb, they'll get killed.
00:50:57
Speaker
Awesome.
00:50:58
Speaker
That's that's really great of you.
00:50:59
Speaker
Like sabotage the goddamn expedition when they get that close.
00:51:07
Speaker
Break all of their supplies.
00:51:08
Speaker
Do something.
00:51:11
Speaker
Show up with a whole army of big guys with big guns and say, hey, no trespassing.
00:51:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:21
Speaker
Like, trust me, you're not going down there.
00:51:24
Speaker
But, you know, again, we wouldn't have a movie if that happened.
00:51:28
Speaker
But it's just like the whole.
00:51:32
Speaker
Oh, let's just wait and let's let's see what they're doing.
00:51:34
Speaker
No, you know what they're doing.
00:51:35
Speaker
They're going to go try and frickin resurrect him.
00:51:38
Speaker
Like you had the drop on him.
00:51:41
Speaker
Jump in.
00:51:42
Speaker
Kick the goddamn thing out of the way.
00:51:44
Speaker
So it's not close to the emperor.
00:51:47
Speaker
And.
00:51:48
Speaker
Go from there.
00:51:48
Speaker
But no, you let them get right up on top of them.
00:51:52
Speaker
Like.
00:51:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:57
Speaker
And just stuff like that bothers me.
00:52:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:02
Speaker
You're not wrong.
00:52:03
Speaker
You're not wrong.
00:52:04
Speaker
And again, it's not that this is the worst movie we've ever seen, but there's a lot that doesn't work.
00:52:09
Speaker
There's a lot of things that don't make sense.
00:52:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:12
Speaker
And again, it just, it doesn't have, because we said this in the review of the first two, and this is the last point I'll make.
00:52:19
Speaker
There's a lot of things that in a, with a lesser cast, you would not forgive in the first two.
00:52:28
Speaker
And which is funny to say, because it, I mean, actually you only have two of the, you only have two remaining actors back in this franchise.
00:52:40
Speaker
So,
00:52:42
Speaker
yes, I guess, uh, you know, it wasn't, uh, what, uh, whatever.
00:52:52
Speaker
It's just for whatever reason, this movie just, I can't get excited
Conclusion: A Mediocre Movie
00:52:58
Speaker
for it.
00:52:58
Speaker
I can't get mad at it.
00:53:00
Speaker
Um, it's just, it's, it falls in a weird category for me.
00:53:06
Speaker
Um,
00:53:07
Speaker
in terms of how I feel about it, but I don't have any other notes for it.
00:53:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:14
Speaker
Let's, let's grab for some popcorn then.
00:53:17
Speaker
All right.
00:53:17
Speaker
Well, popcorn time.
00:53:19
Speaker
And, you know, I I'm, I've struggled with this because I,
00:53:26
Speaker
when I remembered the movie and there are so many things I remember about this movie watching it.
00:53:32
Speaker
I was like, yeah, I remember all of this that happened.
00:53:35
Speaker
I really do.
00:53:36
Speaker
Um, it wasn't the Scorpion King where I was like, shit, I don't remember a damn thing about this movie.
00:53:42
Speaker
Um, like every scene that happened, I, I vividly remembered.
00:53:46
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:53:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:47
Speaker
okay.
00:53:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:48
Speaker
I do remember this movie very well.
00:53:51
Speaker
And I would have given this a one, a one and a half buckets.
00:53:56
Speaker
Um, but it almost feels too harsh because again, I've watched one in one and a half bucket movies where I'm like, this is not as bad as those.
00:54:06
Speaker
Um, so I guess I just have to give it a two.
00:54:12
Speaker
Um,
00:54:13
Speaker
There are some good moments.
00:54:14
Speaker
I do think Rick has some good moments.
00:54:16
Speaker
Jonathan has some good moments.
00:54:19
Speaker
Alex is certainly better than I remember him.
00:54:22
Speaker
The actor was, was not as bad, but it's just, it's very average.
00:54:31
Speaker
It's very by the numbers Hollywood movie.
00:54:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:36
Speaker
I, I have reliably seen this movie one other time than when I watched it this week because
00:54:43
Speaker
And I didn't have a great memory of what happened.
00:54:46
Speaker
I didn't remember liking it.
00:54:48
Speaker
It's not regarded well.
00:54:50
Speaker
Anytime you talk about this movie, it's not likely something that I see myself ever watching again.
00:54:57
Speaker
Nope.
00:54:58
Speaker
I struggle to think about why I would choose this.
00:55:01
Speaker
I would watch the first two movies back to back before I would watch this one or the Scorpion King film.
00:55:08
Speaker
It's, you know, it's not terrible.
00:55:11
Speaker
It's certainly not good.
00:55:12
Speaker
It's very, I'm very indifferent towards it.
00:55:16
Speaker
I, I was really struggling with where to rate it because I can't give it a great rating.
00:55:22
Speaker
I also can't give it a terrible rating because it's better than a lot of the terrible movies we've seen.
00:55:26
Speaker
I'm going two and a half buckets just because I feel like there's enough things that do work.
00:55:33
Speaker
it's and it's i've given worse films worse ratings so i can't i can't go as low as two i gotta go two and a half yeah it just again it falls into a weird category but um who knows maybe we'll get a fourth one and you know maybe they do what hollywood has done and don't even act like the third one existed it's a the fourth one is a follow-up to the second one you know um
00:56:02
Speaker
They never even had this adventure.
00:56:03
Speaker
I don't know.
00:56:05
Speaker
I mean, what continuity wise do they have to build on from this movie?
00:56:09
Speaker
What in what way do they even need to address that this even happened?
00:56:14
Speaker
Like, yeah, for what happens that they would have to play into.
00:56:18
Speaker
You don't really need it.
00:56:20
Speaker
No, I mean, you certainly could ignore it and just go from there.
00:56:25
Speaker
But yeah, so.
00:56:30
Speaker
I'm glad we finished it.
00:56:31
Speaker
I'm glad we finished it because at least again, like I said, I, it is not as bad as I remember.
00:56:39
Speaker
It's certainly not.
00:56:40
Speaker
I just think, you know, at the time it was, um,
00:56:47
Speaker
The mummy movies were so cool to me.
00:56:49
Speaker
They were so much fun.
00:56:50
Speaker
And even on the rewatches, they were so much fun to watch.
00:56:54
Speaker
And like you said, I will still put those movies on.
00:56:57
Speaker
I will watch those.
00:56:58
Speaker
Those are movies that I would throw on when, okay, you know what?
00:57:04
Speaker
if I have to do something and it's not something new that I want to put on, or it's something that would keep my interest while I'm walking back and forth from the kitchen, doing dishes, whatever the case may be.
00:57:17
Speaker
I would still put these movies on to this day and find myself stopping and going, well, I know what's coming up.
00:57:24
Speaker
I'm going to sit down and watch it.
00:57:26
Speaker
The sandstorm scene, the, you know, the giant river scene.
00:57:30
Speaker
There are still so many parts of the first two movies where I would find myself going, okay, I'm going to sit down for a second and watch this part.
00:57:37
Speaker
The bus, the, the bus scene in the second one, but there's so much of that.
00:57:44
Speaker
But yeah, with this and the Scorpion King, it's,
00:57:48
Speaker
There's just no reason to turn it on again.
00:57:50
Speaker
There's not.
00:57:52
Speaker
No.
00:57:52
Speaker
Because you don't have the humor.
00:57:54
Speaker
You don't.
00:57:55
Speaker
You don't have the set pieces.
00:57:58
Speaker
I don't think this movie has.
00:57:59
Speaker
You know, this movie certainly to me doesn't have better set pieces, even with the the really bad CGI in The Mummy Returns.
00:58:08
Speaker
You don't have the set pieces and.
00:58:11
Speaker
It just, yeah, it's a very average movie.
00:58:15
Speaker
And you don't even have, like we talked about, the kung fu action scenes aren't even memorable.
00:58:21
Speaker
Right.
00:58:21
Speaker
I can think of so many movies that Michelle Yeoh and or Jet Li have been in together where I can think of very specific fights where...
00:58:29
Speaker
very specific pieces of those fights that I'm looking forward to.
00:58:32
Speaker
I mean, the crouching tiger battle where they, where it takes place in the training area where she's fighting it against the green destiny sword.
00:58:40
Speaker
And she has to go get like 75 different weapons to, I just, I love that scene so much.
00:58:46
Speaker
It was because of that scene that I, I decided I wanted to learn how to use the double hook swords and everybody that I trained with thought I was insane for wanting to try to do that.
00:58:54
Speaker
But I was like, no, that looked bad ass.
00:58:56
Speaker
That was the coolest thing.
00:58:58
Speaker
I've ever seen.
00:58:59
Speaker
What are those?
00:59:00
Speaker
How do I learn those?
00:59:01
Speaker
And, uh, I still have them actually there.
00:59:03
Speaker
Uh, they're hidden somewhere in my house.
00:59:04
Speaker
I don't remember where I put them, but I still own them.
00:59:06
Speaker
Um, and maybe one of these days I'll swing around in the backyard and make the kids like get terrified.
00:59:11
Speaker
Um, but, uh, actually, you know what?
00:59:12
Speaker
I'm going to hang on to them until, um,
00:59:15
Speaker
One of my daughters brings a date home for the first time.
00:59:17
Speaker
That's what I'll have.
00:59:18
Speaker
I won't do a shotgun.
00:59:19
Speaker
I'll have the double hook swords out.
00:59:22
Speaker
Just flinging them.
00:59:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's way scarier because like a shotgun, you kind of have a general idea of what that's for.
00:59:29
Speaker
But a guy with double hook swords, that's somebody that you kind of go, oh, geez, what's that all about?
00:59:34
Speaker
Oh, you must be Jake.
00:59:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:39
Speaker
Oh yes.
00:59:39
Speaker
Home by 11, sir.
00:59:40
Speaker
Yes.
00:59:40
Speaker
You got 10 59 on the dot, you know?
00:59:42
Speaker
Right.
00:59:43
Speaker
Exactly.
00:59:44
Speaker
But you know, like I look forward to those scenes and there's just, isn't that in this.
00:59:48
Speaker
So yeah, it's a shame.
00:59:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:51
Speaker
Well, that, that does it for the mummy series.
00:59:56
Speaker
You know, another series in the books.
00:59:59
Speaker
But what I'm glad we revisited overall.
01:00:02
Speaker
So it was a lot of fun to, to go there and,
01:00:07
Speaker
Uh, we're, we're still going to power through halo, but Rob, you and I have got to throw a couple of ideas at each other and decide which one is, is absolutely going to be next.
01:00:18
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of fun things we've talked about and looking forward to bringing that to you, the listener.
01:00:24
Speaker
Stay tuned if you've been if you've been following the Halo series, even if you haven't been following the Halo series, you should.
01:00:30
Speaker
You should you should definitely check out our thoughts on it.
01:00:33
Speaker
All the thoughts we have are fun and will hopefully help you pass the time.
01:00:37
Speaker
If you're running the snowblower, running the lawnmower, whatever season it happens to be in when you're hearing these words, if you're doing dishes, if you're driving to work.
01:00:45
Speaker
If you're on the train, out walking the dog, on the treadmill, whatever it is you happen to be doing while you listen to Matt Goes to the Movies.
01:00:50
Speaker
First of all, thank you for downloading.
01:00:52
Speaker
Thank you for checking the show out.
Closing Remarks & Listener Engagement
01:00:54
Speaker
Tell a friend.
01:00:55
Speaker
Matt Goes to the Movies is the best podcast that you have not told all of your friends about for some reason.
01:01:00
Speaker
Why is that?
01:01:00
Speaker
You should do that.
01:01:01
Speaker
Correct that today.
01:01:02
Speaker
Share the show with your friend and subscribe everywhere you get good podcasts.
01:01:06
Speaker
If you have a particular review you would like us to do, you can send it to MGTTMPodcasts at gmail.com.
01:01:13
Speaker
Send all your thoughts that way and make sure to check out all of the social media wherever you are.
01:01:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:21
Speaker
Couldn't say it better myself.
01:01:23
Speaker
So listeners, thank you very much for joining us.
01:01:26
Speaker
Check our social media for updates on what we will be bringing you next, but we will see you very soon with our next reviews.