The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - not enough Jet Li!

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is sort of the third movie in the recent Mummy franchise. I say "sort of" because I'm not sure how you count the two Scorpion King movies. The first Scorpion King seemed to be the last we would hear of the Mummy franchise, but that was completely wrong (see my previous review of The Scorpion King 2).

In this movie we have the continuation of the adventures of Rick O'Connell (now with the nickname "Ricochet," which is so fucking clever I can't even stand it), his wife Evelyn, and their now adult son Alex. Unfortunately while Brendan Fraser did a great job playing essentially a more "shoot first and ask questions later" Indiana Jones knockoff in the first two movies, the third movie jumped straight to Crystal Skull territory. Therefore I dub this the fourth movie in the franchise, although Scorpion King is no Last Crusade.

What is it with action movies and how kids ruin everything? In The Mummy Returns, little Alex had some charm as a little smartass kid that knew some Egyptian stuff from his mom and had the spunk of his dad. In this movie he should be about twice that age, yet his smartassery has no real charm. Instead he comes off as a punk kid that actually does want to be Indiana Jones - except without doing the work of getting a Ph.D. (he is DOCTOR Jones, after all). Still, don't get me wrong, this movie is better than Crystal Skull. I think it's the whole "not crapping all over my childhood" thing that makes it better, or maybe the "this kid actually has a legitimate reason to be a cocky bastard," or perhaps the "at least they're still fighting mummies" part.

As for Rick and Evelyn, I must commend Rachel Weisz for opting out of this movie. In many ways there is nothing new for these characters at all - of course Rick happens to know the old colorful comerade from back in the day, but Evelyn doesn't really show off that much knowledge. Despite having been a librarian before, and presumably active in WWII (this movie takes place a few years after the war), she's now... writing romance novels? What? She knows enough crap to be a fucking professor of Egyptology and she's doing that? Meanwhile Brendan Fraser indulges in some flyfishing slapstick that really just isn't that funny. Of course, this is just to show how the two have retired, and how they are both unhappy with that retirement, but I mean, come ON.

All that aside, however, Jonathan (John Hannah) still manages to provide ACTUAL comedic relief, once he shows up on screen. Furthermore, once the O'Connells get to China and the mummy wakes up (although I'm not really sure if you can call the Emperor a mummy... but they do, repeatedly, anyway) then the good times are rolling. This movie has very solid special effects and CGI, which is characteristic of the first two Mummy movies and fortunately continued in this one. Once again there's some social friction between members of the family that usually results in yelling and arguing over guns, which is rather entertaining. Also, while she isn't the original, Maria Bello does a good job of taking over the role of Evelyn, staying true to the character and showing us the continued built-up confidence the character gained since the original film, where she was the damsel-in-distress. There's travel, races through the streets, and new enemies who want to awaken the mummy for their own personal gain who at least have a better reason for doing so than the ones in The Mummy Returns.

Alex also inexplicably gets a love interest, a chinese girl who was guarding the tomb of the dragon emperor to make sure no one woke him up. Much like in the first movie, despite having succeeded for thousands of years, the guardians are no match for O'Connell spunk (even if this is the junior version). Fortunately she knows how to defeat the dragon emperor once he IS awakened, which really helps our heroes out, as apparently this mummy has the power to turn into a crazy three-headed dragon.

And this is really the problem. While the movie is fun, has very good action sequences, comedy, and even some believable plot, romance, and character development, the makers failed in one major respect: they got one of the present-day gods of martial arts, and had him be a three-headed dragon and some sort of crazy were-beast. It's JET FUCKING LI. He could beat the crap out of a three-headed dragon with his bare hands. I don't mind if you want to do Imhotep-style sandstorms and crap, but we hardly get to see any Jet Li in this movie. Even worse, Michelle Yeoh, of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon badassery, is also in this, and she fights Jet Li, and their battle lasts for LESS THAN A MINUTE (I timed it). Furthermore this is the only real fight she has in the entire movie. It's like, let's hire some of the best martial artists out there, then have them do like two scenes! yaaaaaaaaaaay!

At least it was cool while it lasted

And look, I know you all know how the movie ends. The Mummy is defeated, Rick O'Connell wins, that's how these movies all end. I won't spoil the details, but seriously, Jet Li would only lose to Brendan Fraser if he were force-fed muscle relaxants and had both his arms tied behind his back. No offense to Brendan Fraser but, I mean, come the fuck on.

Despite all my ranting, this IS a fun movie. It's not as good as the first two by any means, but I still find it to be entertaining and rewatchable. However I can't in good conscience give this anything better than a "gouda-nuff" rating because of the severe lack of Jet Li kicking ass. Still, the plot is sound enough to have genuine interest in the characters and what will happen next, although it's not really edge-of-your-seat, and Michelle Yeoh at least gets to show off her acting skills. If you really want to see a Jet Li movie, this is not for you, but if you want to enjoy an action/adventure movie that has pretty special effects and fun explosions, complete with chase sequences and armies of the undead fighting each other, this is the movie for you.

Resident Evil Extinction: Mad Max for the next generation

Resident Evil: Extinction is the third movie in the Resident Evil series starring Milla Jovovich. When the movie starts it turns out that the T-virus has pretty much wiped out all life on earth including plants (why plants? do zombies eat plants? did the plants become zombies and eat each other?) leaving the entire world a barren, desertous wasteland. People travel around in vehicles that they have attached various scrap metal to in order to armor them, looking for places to get fuel and food. In other words, this movie is like Mad Max: The Road Warrior, if Mad Max were a hot chick with superstrength and telekinesis that fought zombies.

Yes that's right, I said telekinesis. In the first movie, Alice (Milla Jovovich) is just some chick that can fight really well. In the second movie, she's part of some sort of "Nemesis" project that gives her enhanced abilities by somehow making her part zombie through crazy genetic experimentation. How can you top part-zombie super strength and speed? Obviously by inexplicably giving her the power to lift motorcycles with her mind.

I've got machetes, bitches. Don't fuck with me.

Movies based on video games are notoriously bad. Most video games have just enough "story" to explain why you're shooting monsters, they're not well known for plots that translate well into film. Having never played Resident Evil I can't say much about how the movies compare to the game, however, unlike the first two Resident Evil movies, Apocalypse is one that can legitimately be classified as an action movie. The first one is mostly focused on horror, and the second is a mix of action and horror (and nonsense), but by the third movie no one is scared of reanimated hungry corpses any more, so everyone can just focus on shooting them in their rotting faces. And they do! Admittedly there is a lot of lag in this movie, with a couple of characters coming back from the second movie, and some women in the road-warrior-esque convoy that somehow have perfect hair and makeup despite living in a hellish zombie-infested wasteland, but when there actually IS action, it's some of the best.

There is Alice fighting zombies with her bare hands, chains, guns, and my personal favorite, machetes. The Umbrella corporation is still after her, so to up the zombie ante, they actually create EVEN FASTER, MORE AGGRESSIVE zombies. This makes sense, because in the first two movies, with the exception of the dog zombies and the crazy fucked up mutant zombies, the ravenous undead are pretty slow. The main danger is when they swarm you and trap you in tight spaces. But now regular zombies are able to run around at speeds comprable to living people, except they don't get tired or waste their time screaming, so they can actually catch people. And bite them. I'm not sure if the superzombies make more superzombies or not, though. They probably do.

Now I'm sure the real question weighing on people's mind is, "is Milla Jovovich naked in this movie too?" Boy is she ever! Not only do they take the zombies to the next level, they also take naked Jovovich to the extreme. How, you ask? Clones. That's right, Alice clones, ALL of whom start out their clone lives butt-naked. And that isn't a spoiler, you find that shit out in the first 15 minutes or so. Of course the clones aren't as good as the real thing, which is why Umbrella is trying to get their hands on the real Alice. Meanwhile Alice finds some notebook in a public restroom that has notes on how there's no infection somewhere and convinces the convoy to go there. So there's your plot for you.

What about other people? Well, the zombies get run over by cars, one guy drives a semi into a massive crowd of them and blows them up, we have snipers, shotguns, and plenty of "NYOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Also we have some kind of neat technology, which never goes amiss in an action movie. It's all pseudoscience, but they do us the favor of not trying to explain it, which always ruins the pseudoscience. There's also a little tribute to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," which is frankly just fucking awesome.

This movie does have long periods that are more suspense than flat-out action, a little too much "we have to really emphasize that they're after Alice," and some truly terrible dramatic dialogue. But as action movies go, if you like to see people kicking zombie ass, and you like Mad Max, you will probably get a kick out of this. You have to wait a while to see people being torn apart by crazed flesh-eating monsters en masse, but when it does happen, it's everything you could hope for. The bits in between aren't torturous, and the plot is cohesive enough if you don't think about it too much. Still it's not a movie I'd call "rewatchable," and while there are some memorable scenes, it's probably not something you'd want in your DVD collection unless you've got a real hard-on for Milla Jovovich.