“The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior” Movie Review

    “The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior” was the first direct to video movie in “The Scorpion King” franchise.  Universal Studios had planned to make a proper theatrical sequel starring The Rock but after putting it off and passing on scripts, Universal decided to take the franchise is a different direction.  I remember being excited to buy it hoping it would be a good movie.  I was very naive then.

    The film isn’t actually a sequel to “The Scorpion King”.  This may get confusing so you might need to reread this, the film serves as a prequel to “The Scorpion King” which in itself was a prequel to “The Mummy Returns” which was a sequel to the 1999 version of “The Mummy” which was a remake of the 1932 version of “The Mummy”.  ::Breaths in and out::  That is probably the most interesting thing about this movie sadly.

    The film focuses on Mathayus’ quest to avenge his father’s death.  Most of the adventures in the film seem like time fillers and are almost instantly forgettable.  I really wanted to enjoy the movie but there wasn’t much in the movie to make you feel invested.

    The film was directed by Russell Mulcahy of “Highlander” fame.  Seeing Russell Mulcahy’s name attached to the project gave me some hope.  Mulcahy is a capable film director so a direct to video movie should be no problem for him to handle.  Unfortunately, this movie was more “Highlander 2” than “Highlander”.

    Michael Copon takes over the role of Mathayus from The Rock.  Copon is no Dwayne Johnson and has almost no charm.  One has to imagine even on a direct to video budget, there were better actors for the money.  Randy Couture of UFC fame plays the main villain of the movie. I imagine they cast Couture because of his fame in the UFC at the time and they figured they would create a movie star like they did with The Rock.  Randy Couture isn’t terrible given his limited acting experience, but he doesn’t command the screen presence of Dwayne Johnson.

    Lastly, what is with the ending of this film?  In “The Mummy Returns”, The Scorpion King emerges as a terrible cgi effect and ruins the ending.  In this film, the lead villain turns into a giant invisible scorpion.  Did the filmmakers run out of money?  It certainly seems so and the scene is laughably bad.  Maybe I was just too disappointed at the time to care but I tried my best to give the movie a fair shake.  I remember liking the movie more when I first watched it.  This movie doesn’t improve with rewatching though.  I have seen worse but for a feature film, the movie doesn’t offer much entertainment value.

Grade: D-

“The Scorpion King” Movie Review

    In what seems like forever ago, Universal Studios was heavily invested in their Mummy franchise.  “The Mummy” and “The Mummy Returns” were hugely successful endeavors and the studio had signed a contract with a then little known Dwayne Johnson who was primarily known as The Rock in the WWE.  As far as wrestling, he was a star, outside of wrestling however, he was a nobody.  Universal Studios gambled heavily on The Rock and gave him his own Mummy spin-off entitled “The Scorpion King”.  The film was a moderate success but helped launch Dwayne Johnson into superstardom.
    “The Scorpion King” is nothing Earth shatteringly original and at times feels like the type of film Arnold Schwarzenegger might have made in the 1980s.  In fact, it is very much like Schwarzenegger’s Conan films in style and entertainment value.  Dwayne Johnson makes for the perfect substitute thankfully.
    Much of the film relies on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s screen presence and thankfully, he seems very at ease in the role of Mathayus, also known as the Scorpion King.  The cast is also enhanced by the late Michael Clarke Duncan whose sheer size alone commanded attention.  Johnson and Duncan played off each other well and it was a shame the two didn’t work together more often.  One complaint I have is that Bernard Hill was criminally underused.  On the other hand, Kelly Hu shined as the Sorceress.  I would have thought her film career would have taken off more after this film.
    The biggest problem with this film was that the ending didn’t connect with the beginning of “The Mummy Returns”.  Clearly they wanted to leave the door open for sequels.  Unfortunately, the sequels ended up coming in the form of direct to video films.  Those films as a whole left a lot to be desired and it is sad Dwayne Johnson didn’t return to the role of Mathayus.
    “The Scorpion King” isn’t a perfect film and it had a definite Robert E. Howard vibe to it but it was also ultimately satisfying.  The film also makes for an entertaining addition to “The Mummy” franchise.

Grade: B

“The Mummy Returns” Movie Review

    I was a big fan of the Stephen Sommers helmed remake of “The Mummy” so I was completely on board to see the sequel when it was announced.  I didn’t know how they could make the sequel work but I was open to be surprised.  Thankfully, when I left the theater of “The Mummy Returns”, I remember really enjoying reuniting with the characters.

    “The Mummy Returns” is an overall fun and crazy film which probably shouldn’t work but somehow does.  The film manages to bring most of the returning cast together again fairly quickly and fairly early into the film.  The plot revolves around Rick and Evelyn O’Connell’s son Alex accidentally putting on the bracelet of Anubis which will end up killing him in seven days unless he returns the bracelet to the Scorpion King’s pyramid.  Along the way he is captured by Imhotep, the mummy from the first film, who is looking to capture the power of the Scorpion King for himself.
    Like the first film, most of the sequel’s charm comes from it’s cast.  Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz return to lead the cast and the two have a great unlikely chemistry.  The two really seem comfortable with each other and it helps us invest in their adventures.  Other casts members to return include John Hannah, Oded Fehr, and Arnold Vosloo who all add a little more levels to their characters in this film.  Of course this film is famous for being the big budget debut of WWE superstar The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) in a film.  Dwayne Johnson basically had a glorified cameo in the film but he had a presence that was hard to ignore even in his cameo.
    Now, I want to discuss one of the main problems with the film, The Scorpion King himself.  The Scorpion King was a great concept and I loved the idea of creating a new Universal Studio monster for a new era.  There was so much promise there and the opening scenes featuring The Rock were undeniably cool.  Then we got to the Scorpion King in the final act.  Why?  Who cleared that terrible cgi?  When the Scorpion King arrives looking like something straight out of a PlayStation 2 game, it completely takes you out of an otherwise solid movie.  A movie that was already close to being as good or better than the previous film.  Why couldn’t Dwayne Johnson come out as The Scorpion King possessing Superman like strength?  It would have worked a lot better than the cgi nightmare we got.  Plus, while I enjoyed The Scorpion King character in his solo film outing, Universal ended up watering down the character and wasting him in tiresome direct to video films.
    So, I found the film to be really fun overall.  It built on the first movie really well and had a lot of things going for it.  Unfortunately, it also had massive wasted potential with the character of the Scorpion King.  That doesn’t kill the movie for me, but it may be too much for others.

Grade: B