THE MUMMY 3: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR

The Mummy remake premiered in 1999, it managed to appeal to a wide audience due to its sub-Indiana Jones tone, a winning performance from Brendan Fraser, and cheesy-yet-creative special effects. In other words, Universal stole one from movie audiences. The inevitable sequel, The Mummy Returns, was an incoherent mess salvaged only by the rising star power of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. I despised both films, but the sequel made me almost physically ill. I couldn't believe that Universal had the balls to make a sequel to such nonsense, especially when the first film literally begged to be left alone. And now we have another sequel to the franchise nobody cares about. Seven years later, The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is wasting valuable screen time. The story is such a load of fucking bullshit that I can barely convince my fingers to type the synopsis. The overlong and overly serious prologue drones on about a dead emporer waiting to be resurrected so that he can call forth his undead army ... blah, blah, blah. It's like something out of Dragon Wars, except that film was infinitely more fun than this. The story takes this turn to the Orient in order to work super-hot Jet Li into the mix as the Dragon Emperor. One of my crushes, the incomparable Michelle Yeoh, slums her way through another soggy American film as some chick who is responsible for the Dragon Emperor's entombment. It's the type of lazy, written-on-the-fly storytelling that makes you wish you were deaf. Anything would be preferable to sitting through this contrived nothingness; I would rather ass-rape my own mother five minutes after her savage death than watch this thing again. I have seen Rorschach ink blots that contained more plot cohesion and dramatic sensibility. Every aspect of this film is pointlessness personified. However, one thing absolutely needs to be mentioned: STOP FILLING THE SCREEN WITH TERRIBLE MOTHERFUCKING CGI JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT! Goddamnit, Ray Fucking Harryhausen could animate a cotton ball soaked in pig jizz more realistically than the computer effects in this fucking abomination. The Mummy 3 comes from that hallowed tradition of great CGI trailblazers like Van Helsing, where every last frame is crowded with terribly-crafted computer monsters and assorted pixelated bullshit. And while great fantasy films like Lord of the Rings work hard to make you believe in their monsters, director/moron Rob Cohen doesn't care at all about trivialities like that. I cannot imagine that Cohen sat through the dailies on these special effects and thought, "Perfect! That looks so damn real!" Get some fucking glasses, Rob. And a fucking brain, too. Fuck ... I despised this thing. Is summer over yet????

rating: 0.5