The past couple of years have brought us a great deal of sequels. Of course, 2008 has continued this trend, with very few new movies for us, the public to view.
Sad thing is, typically when you get sequels, they very rarely come close to the same quality as the original. Occasionally – let’s be honest, extremely rarely, will a sequel ever be better than the movie that spawned it.
And then we get the inevitable third movie, which more often than not closes the franchise. Sometimes the third movie in the series is good, but more often than not, it’s terrible.
A few prime examples are – Alien 3, Terminator 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, X-men 3… and the list goes on and on. Although a couple of these movies I didn’t mind, and lets face it, everyone’s taste is different, so my view won’t necessarily agree with yours – for the most part, the third movie is bad, if not downright terrible.
And then, like the elusive sequel that is BETTER than the original, you get a third movie that is pretty good, on par with the original.
Tonight, my son and I went to the premier of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I have to admit that I was quite sceptical, because of what I said above; you know the whole third movie being terrible thing.
I will gladly admit that I was quite wrong.
Ok, now it’s time for my usual disclaimer. I will not give away any spoilers for this movie, other than what you will have seen in trailers from the various sources. After all, I can write reviews that state what I like and dislike about a film without it sounding like it can be used to describe any movie out there.
I don’t do the generic reviews, after all. Sorry, I digress…
The third movie takes place in the mid 40’s, a few years after the end of the Second World War Evelyn and Rick have since retired from their adventures and are living a quite life.
Albeit a boring life.
Their son, Alex has since grown to manhood and has left home to study in university. However, he’s got too much of his father in his blood and he has grown up to be quite the adventurer.
His current escapades have him locating and uncovering the tomb of the legendary Chinese Emperor Han.
Of course, once this happens an ancient curse is broken and the Emperor awakens, and is read to pick up where he left off – conquering the known world.
Now, the movie has all the elements that made the original Mummy a success… humour, actors while portraying their respective roles don’t take themselves too seriously, and quite honestly, epic adventure.
Did I mention the humour? That was one of the best parts of the original Mummy. Sure, there was horror, but it was offset by genuine belly laughs. I will say this, and it’s not really a spoiler, but the humour wasn’t quite up to what I was expecting, but I did laugh numerous times during the movie. Don’t get me wrong here, I just didn’t find it quite as funny as the first!
I have to say that I missed Rachel Weisz – Evelyn was brought to life by her acting, and she left large shoes to fill when she couldn’t reprise her role.