The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
2008; directed by Rob Cohen

The fourth film in the modern Mummy series, The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, as you might expect, doesn't veer too far from the formula that made the previous movies commercial (if not critical) successes. Besides the switch to an Asian backdrop, The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is basically the big dumb action picture that fans have come to know and love. Depending on whether you liked the previous entries, that might be a really good or really bad thing.

As for this reviewer who has been pretty neutral on the series, it's kind of hard to offer any sort of real subjective opinions or deep insight. This is popcorn summer fare 101 all the way, and taking that into effect, the film succeeds to an extent. The special effects have certainly improved since the laughable CGI characterization of The Scorpion King back in The Mummy Returns, but at the end of the film, even the most naive viewer realizes that it is still CGI thrown on the screen, and no matter how impressive it is (the final battle between warring mummy armies is quite well-done) it really can't replace what someone like Jet Li can do for real.

Speaking of Jet, like most of his western-produced films, this doesn't really feel like a "Jet Li" role. There's very little way of martial arts, and even though his role is in Mandarin, there are hardly any lines given to him. Hell, for most of the movie, it isn't even really Jet, it's a CGI model of him. Michelle Yeoh doesn't fare much better in a bookend role that really could have been played by any number of Asian actresses. The one Chinese actor with major screen time is Anthony Wong, but even though he surprisingly didn't phone this role in, it doesn't matter anyway, because once again, everything just feels so blase and generic that you could have thrown in any random older Asian actor and the results would have probably been the same.

I don't want to instill the fact that this movie is racist or Asian-phobic in any way. In fact, it's probably a testament to how far Hollywood has come (albeit in small steps) since Jet's US debut with Lethal Weapon 4, which featured the infamous "flied lice" jokes, that Chinese culture is treated at least somewhat serously -- at least the Chinese characters actually speak Chinese. Anyway, any sort of half-ass pseudo-intellectual wankery aside, The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is a decent brainless action flick that's nothing worth rushing out to see, but is probably worth a matinee or rental down the line.

RATING: 5