Film Review:

“The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” more commonly known as “Mummy 3” is a Chinese translation of its two Egyptian predecessors. Although the Dragon Emperor played by Jet Li isn’t really a mummy but a burning amalgam of flesh and metal, the movie is so packed with non-stop action, frenetic photography and exotic locales that it hardly matters. Retired adventurers Rick and Evie O’Connell (the ever-excellent Brendan Fraser and a woefully miscast Maria Bello) live restless lives in a palatial English manor house, yearning for action, while their grown son, Alex (a miscast Luke Ford, too old to be Fraser’s son), has found plenty of action digging up the lost tomb of Han, the first emperor of China. An evil ruler, Han’s reanimation awakens the usual hoards of villains eager to take over the world. Two immortals, a witch and her daughter, guard the tomb of the emperor to make sure he stays buried. But with the O’Connells around, the witches’ task is hopeless.

Comic relief John Hannah returns as Evie’s bumbling brother, his appearance relieving the tedious stretches of the movie which deal with unexplained O’ Connell family issues, and too much time is devoted to slow scenes featuring the wooden Ford and the winceable Bello.

On the plus side, the Chinese cast is uniformly excellent. In addition to Li, Michelle Yeoh and Russell Wong as the thwarted ancient lovers (a la Imhotep and Ankhesenamun), Anthony Wong as the evil General Yang and Isabella Leong as Alex O’Connell’s love interest bring energy and color to the back story. One drawback of the film is the relentless cloning of characters and scenes from the original Egyptian into Chinese. The Dragon Emperor follows in the footsteps of the Scorpion King and the reanimated terracotta army stands in for the hoards of Osiris. Michelle Yeoh covers base for both Ankhesenamun and Ardeth Bay while eccentric British pilot Liam Cunningham channels eccentric British pilot Bernard Fox. But if you loved the first two mummy films there is enough difference in this dragon ride to keep you glued to your seat. See you at the movies!

SUSAN JAMES can be reached at lcnews@valleysun.net.