Movie Review - The Mummy :tomb of the Dragon emperor

The Mummy tomb of the Dragon emperor

The Mummy tomb of the Dragon emperor is the third movie in the Mummy series. After the success of the earlier movies "the Mummy" and the sequel the "The Mummy returns". The third movie in the installment stars Brenden Fraser as Rick O'Connell the adventurous explorer who along with his wife Evelyn(played by Maria Bello ), his brother-in-law jonathan (played by John Hannah) and his son who has grown up to fall in trouble, Alex (played by Luke Ford). His adversary this time is the Emperor Han played by Jet li.

The movie opens on a brisk note with the story of the Dragon King in China done away with in 15 minutes. The Dragon king is a ruthless emperor with an ambition to rule the world. He has control over the five elements but wants to conquer death. He finds out about a witch who knows the secret to conquer death. Immediately, he sends his trusted general Ming to fetch the witch. Upon arriving the Emperor falls for the witch and commands all that no one is to touch her and that the witch was his. But the General and the witch fall in love while searching for the spell of immortality. when they return the witch casts the spell on the Emperor. But soon after the emperor kills the General as he comes to know the affair between the witch and him. Things turn wrong for him when he finds out the witch has cast a wrong spell on him and he is trapped by the spell along with his army until someone resurrects him from his entrapment.

Circa now, excavators lead by O'connels son Alex find the very tomb of the Emperor. Not without its share of traps and attacks from an unknown ninja (Turns out to be the witches daughter protecting the tomb - couldnt control keeping the secret :P). Turns out alex is in china with his uncle jonathan - who doesnt need anyone to scare him off.

Alex' parents are happily enjoying their retirement from all the Mummy stuff (Just to mention they do an awful job of acting to show that that they dont like the retirement - it seems they are tired of acting int the movie :)) ). Anyways, call it a coincidence that they get an offer to take the "Eye of Shangrila" to a museum in China. (The reason for this benovelence is apparently a newly found sense of respect towards the chinese people who deserve the "Eye of Shangrila". GO Figure out ). So they graciously accept the all expenses paid trip. They land up in China and visit the Museum and hand over the "Eye of Shangrila" to the curator. But since its too simple a job considering they have traveled around the world for it; a gang of military dudes land up with a scar-face chick in tow. These retards aim to revive the cursed Dragon Emperor (Jet li) so that he restores the lost glory of China.

After a brief standoff the o'Connells are forced to open "The Eye of the shangrila" and the Emperor is revived. Theres a catch though . his curse is still is very much in place. To become immortal he must find the Shangrila itself so that the fountain of immortality shall repeal his curse. In doing so he can then revive his entire army too. The army shall help him in carrying out his ambition to conquer the world (No, he doesnt know theres competition for the post from a certain Mr George Bush ). The only thing between him and immortality is the O'Connell family along with the witches daughter Lin.

The revived emperor heads to the Himalayas to find the gateway to shangrila. The o'Connells guided by Lin reach the temple which is the beacon to Shangrila. Meanwhile, the emperor also reaches the place with his minions. Theres some more boom boom with a dash of father son camaraderie. The O'Connels almost pull off the impossible feat of defeating the Emperor Just after the intermission but the script has its way and the emperor succeeds in finding the way to sangrila. not to mention , in spite of few friendly neighbourhood Yetis who irritate more than they help.

At the cave of shangrila the o'Connels meet the witch, who in turn is more than happy to meet her daughter. With the family reunion in progress the Emperor shows up and messes up their party. he becomes immortal* (conditions apply). He becomes a three headed (hmmmm .. as if he had a choice) dragon and heads towards his tomb in china to lead his army beyond the "Wall of china" which shall make them invincible. The O'Connels and Lin also reach China before the emperor.. er ..Dragon .. Jet Li .. u got the idea right?

While the emperor is busy reviving his army, the O'Connels are busy collecting guns to fight the guy who controls the five elements. (Aha! a class case of fools rushing in Dr. Watson. I kept wondering why did the Emperor keep these retards alive so long; or were they too pathetic to even take notice ). By now, the emperor has revived his entire army and giving them a propaganda speech straight out of WW II. But they have other problems too.The O'Connells only chance to kill the emperor to drive an enchanted knife through the emperors heart. They are tremendously short of manpower facing the revived army of the emperor. SO the witch pitches in and revives all the people that have been killed and buried in the Wall of China. Now after an almost tiringly comic showdown (believe me it could easily grab an academy award for best comic performance or better comic direction. Imagine thousands of terra cota mummies fighting the skeletons and in between them a bunch of chinese army lunatics ) the emperor is killed and the OConnels win.

Now with the story out of the way with my feelings for the movie.
If u really are a Mummy franchise fan then u may give this movie a go. With no real story to boot it up the movie relies entirely on the bang bang and special effects. With the script just making excuses for loading the gun people hoping for a semblance of a story would be snoring soon. Unlike the earlier two movies the movie happens to be a melee of action sequences at exotic locations with average special effects compared to the earlier movies. Brendan Fraser looks his part in the movie. Hes probably used to slaying mummies by now. His better half doesnt match the earlier girls though. Alex looks good as the young OConnell. Lin also plays the witches' daughters' part impressively. Jet Li is grossly wasted since hes mostly an angry terra kota man. the opening few minutes move at a fast pace though which deal with the rise and cruelty of the Dragon King.

All in all an action movie with action and nothing else.

Hope you found the review worthwile. Watch the trailer of the movie here.

Movie review - The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - the trip begins

i was lying in my room playing NFS hot pursuit when suddenly i got a call from siddhe (siddhesh happens to be a very good friend from college). to be precise, he had tried to call me the day before but me being me, could attend to his call since i was busy in a conference with some US guys. though i promised to call him later couldnt do so since the call got stretched to bit too long and passed beyond the hours of calling a friend however you close might be. the next day did bring its surprises though.

Afternoon was its boring self. (how am i supposed to know where did morning go; i was half dead in my bed :P ). so continuing the story, i got a call. so in the next few minutes i actually managed to finish my game and some R&D and set off towards my target for the day "Sigma Mall". Sigma mall is a big mall situated on cunningham road .The plan for the evening was to watch the movie "The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor".

In all of my jaunts to "Nimma Bengaluru" i had never been to a multiplex to watch a movie so literally jumped at the idea. My first and most difficult task was to first have an idea where the mall was. though i have been in bangalore for the most part of last year i haven't really been about the city barring the confines of my office and place of stay. So i donned the hat of the intrepid tourist and set out.

I reached CMH road which happens to be an arterial road connecting indiranagar to halasuru. the scene at the bus-stop was the same that anyone can see in any city for that matter. people waiting; waiting alone, waiting for someone, waiting with someone and craning their necks to the object of their desire; the BMTC bus. Its a trance like state that people enter into a bus-stop and they generally dont want anyone to disturb them. I managed to catch one guy about to go into the lost state and asked him how was i supposed to reach the place. Thankfully he directed me to the correct bus.

As the bus rambled towards the bus stop, i noticed it resembled more with the state transport buses that play near my village in Maharashtra rather than a city bus. the chassis was very old with paint almost chaffed off and embellished by dents and corrosion. Though i wasnt much concerned by how the bus looked on the outside i braced myself for a few surprises in store once i entered; and i wasnt disappointed.

As i climed the couple of steps into the bus, i immediately felt at home
for i was watching familiar scenes. Not that i had expected a driver less bus; but it was surprisingly similar to a city bs in "Mumbai". two rows of seats which could seat two normal sized individuals with space between the two for those who didnt have an empty seat and have to stand. things appeared pretty much in order without any inconveniences. Even though there were no seats unoccupied the bus was more or less empty. i found a comfortable corner and stood watching the proceedings. People sat in their seats patiently, the lucky ones being those sitting next to windows.

As any good passenger my first reaction after finding a place to stand/sit was look out for a person called the "Conductor". I didnt have to look far. he was right there beside me standing with is customary leather bag slung over his shoulder with change and the paper tickets; and not to mention the same expressionless features on his face as all other conductors i have seen. but this wasnt the interesting part.

what happens when you want to handle cash/coins, ticket and punch tickets before handing it over to a passenger? well if you are successful, chances are your DNA resembles an octopus's than a humans'. theres no way a person can do all that all through the day and repeat it day in and day out. but did i say conductors are normal people? its impossible for us lesser mortals not bus conductors. The guy i was watching was doing a good job vending tickets and a better job of entertaining people. well at least i was entertained. he had the coins saddled in the bag; nothing unusual about that. but between each of his fingers on the left hand were different denomination notes neatly folded, so that he didnt have to fetch it from his bag. Ingenious!!! but what was more than ingenious was the way he punched the tickets.

with the notes snugly fit into his left hand he held the ticket box in the palm of his left. so whenever he had to pick a ticket he reached with his right hand, pulled out some ticket and handed out the passenger. Now the magic happened just before handing over the ticket to the passenger. tucked into his right palm almost unseen to the naive eye was the ticket puncher; a small stapler like device used to punch holes in to the tickets. as soon as the ticket was pulled out, with a flick of the thumb and other fingers the ticket would be punched without anyone even noticing!!! The action amazed me so much that it immediately reminded me of an illustrious colleague of my conductor friend.

that colleague was his senior by quite a few years and million dollars atleast. "Rajanikant" the superstar of the Tamil film industry was a bus conductor himself before getting a break in movies. He used to work for BMTC itself. Anecdotes about his those days as a conductor are as famous as him. His unique style of giving tickets, and doing tasks like wearing sunglasses used to amaze people so much that they used to wait for his bus just to watch him go about his job doing all that. the result was that his bus always used to be full!! dig that.

So this guy went about as coolly about his job as if nothing special and maybe the others agreed too as no one took interest. Eventually i got a seat to sit and my mind was diverted from watching the conductor to watching the scenes go by the window.I managed to get down at some stop eventually and so ended my trip thru the BMTC bus.