I Want My Mummy!

The Mummy: Tomb of The Dragon Emperor (The Mummy 3): Any fan of The Mummy series will enjoy this movie! I am such a fan! The first Mummy movie was not expected to be such a huge hit, even the actors thought it was a risky project. Instead it catapulted careers and spawned two more installments and a spin-off. My favorite of the series is still The Mummy from 1999. If you have not seen it yet, then see that before seeing this one.
The Mummy 3 is full of action and fun - just as you would expect from the series. Jet Li plays the title character and it shows a great deal of history of his character. It is so interesting that you really want to see a movie about his character! It showed him conquering China and building the Great Wall but he wanted to conquer death as well. Also, introduced in this segment is a sorceress played by Michele Yoeh, you also want to see more of her. The movie focuses on the discovery of the Emperor and his army appearing as statues buried deep underground (like the famous Chinese terracotta army that was found in 1974). Our heroes and their son get involved with the unfortunate reviving of the Emperor and the fact that his army will be invincible if it leaves the Great Wall of China. Brendan Frasier leads the O'Connell clan with his usual wit and charm. His wife, Evelyn, is not played in the this movie by the lovely and talented Rachel Weisz. Instead she is replaced by Maria Bello who doesn't appear to have had any significant movie roles. She lacks the chemistry with Frasier that he had with Weisz. We do find out in the beginning of the movie that that is the problem that Rick and Evelyn have. They are bored. This movie picks up in 1946, after the war, when they had apparently been spies for the British government. They miss the excitement they used to share and jump at an opportunity to go to China on a mission for their government. There they run into their son, Alex (who looks to old to be their son), who just so happened to be in China because he quit school to dig up this Emperor. Well, the Emperor has his 1946 henchmen who want to raise the Emperor from the dead and give glory back to China.
There are lots of intertwining plots and characters and you can tell a lot must have been left on the cutting room floor. And even though I loved this movie - I feel more could have been cut. More Jet Li, less Rick and Evy family drama. Jet Li and Michele Yoeh are great. Li doesn't speak any English in the movie (neither did Imoteph) but Yoeh does by the end (she turns out to get some satisfying screen time). There is also some classic Chinese butt whopin'. And as I said, I would have loved to have seen an entire movie about the Dragon Emperor...but maybe that will be another spin-off.
MMMM (out of 5 M's)