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'Tomb of the Dragon Emperor' is a fun summer movie, a hopelessly silly popcorn flick with top-notch special effects. It must have been much more expensive than its predecessors, as long stretches of it feature nothing but CGI creatures battling each other while the humans observe from the sidelines. I was impressed by both the quantity and quality of the CGI, and surprised by how much I enjoyed the overall experience; I had grown really tired of this franchise after The Mummy Returns, and its spin-off The Scorpion King. The series has nothing at all to do with the classic Boris Karloff film, and adds little to existing mummy folklore. It plays by its own rules, and can thus defy them whenever it sees fit. The story has shifted from Egypt to China, and focuses on the discovery and subsequent resurrection of the legendary Emperor Han (Jet Li), who conquered much of the known world in his day, and built the Great Wall to mark the boundaries of his empire. The Great Wall was built by slaves and they were buried underneath it, along with anyone else Han deemed a threat. Han wants to be immortal; he seeks out a sorceress named Zi Juan (Michelle Yeoh), who possesses the ability to bestow eternal life upon him. He wants her for his queen, but she falls in love with his general, Ming (Russell Wong), and they have a child together, Lin (Isabella Leong). Han murders Ming out of jealousy and Zi Juan puts a curse on him and his army. They turn to stone and lie dormant for more than 2000 years, before being dug up by Alex O'Connell (Luke Ford), during an excavation in 1946. Alex's parents are, of course, Rick (Brendan Fraser) and Evelyn (Maria Bello), who have officially retired, and live on a large estate in Oxfordshire, England. Evelyn writes about their past adventures, while secretly pining for another one. She and Rick apparently worked as spies during WWII, and they are approached by a British official to transport a valuable treasure, the Eye of Shangri-La, back to China. Shangri-La is a mythical city tucked away in the Himalayas. Rick and Evelyn head for Shanghai, where they meet up with Alex, and Evelyn's bumbling brother Jonathan (John Hannah), who runs a nightclub. The devious General Yang steals the Eye and revives Han, who is imbued with magical powers. He can control the elements and is practically invincible. The only thing that can kill him is a special dagger that must be driven through his heart. Lin is an assassin who tries to kill Alex, but they end up as a couple. Lin and Zi Juan are both immortal, and so, too, is the Emperor. The Emperor is also a shape shifter, and transforms into a gigantic three-headed dragon. There is a daring chase through the streets of Shanghai, followed by a trek through the Tibetan mountains, where Rick and the gang encounter Yetis. Then, an epic battle ensues in the desert, and Zi Juan awakens the skeletons of the Emperor's former enemies, who are zombies rather than mummies. Technically, the Emperor's soldiers would not qualify as mummies, either, so perhaps there are no real mummies at all. The soldiers themselves can be broken apart by gunfire and explosives, but there are 10,000 of them, and they still have BC era equipment, mainly crossbows and spears, which make them fairly easy to destroy. There is a fight sequence between martial arts icons Yeoh and Li, but it lasts less than a minute, and ends with Yeoh fatally wounded. Fraser and Li duke it out hand-to-hand, but this does not last that long either. Fraser can throw out some decent one-liners, and can handle action scenes well, but he is essentially playing second fiddle to the extremely bland Ford; Fraser is 39, but looks younger, it is difficult (if not impossible), to accept him as Alex's father. Bello is beautiful, but does not quite have the same chemistry with Fraser that Rachel Weisz did. But she does get to shoot a lot of stuff. Yeoh gets some English dialogue; Li speaks in subtitled Chinese. Most of the comedy comes from Jonathan, but I also laughed at Rick's pilot buddy Mad Dog Maguire (Liam Cunningham). I could gripe about this movie's plentiful shortcomings, its ridiculous plot and mostly rigid acting, but I would also have to admit that I was entertained by it in spite of these shortcomings. And the special effects are truly fantastic, even if their artificiality may be evident on numerous occasions. It would not work at all without Fraser. This film, more so than the others that preceded it, is modeled conspicuously after Indiana Jones, with deadly booby traps, a trip to Shanghai (where Temple of Doom begins) and a charismatic Fraser standing in for Harrison Ford. Like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it seems the mantle will be passed onto Alex, who will replace Rick as the main protagonist in future installments. We get a hint that the next movie will be set in Peru, doubtless centering on some ancient Incan god/monarch. email this review to a friend
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