Review of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) by Jens S — 16 Jan 2011

The third film of the Mummy series has very little left of the somewhat old fashioned charm and fun that made the first two highlights of the adventure genre. Rachel Weisz is sorely missed, Maria Bello doesn't fill that character with live for a minute, also thanks to lazy writing.

Lazy is a term that applies to most of the film. It's not slow, it's even rather rushed, but there is hardly a plot to speak of. CGI is used at parts where other creature or visual effects would have worked some much better (Yetis, huh) and it just doesn't look that good most of the time, to the degree where most of the film feels entirely fake, which the former ones did not.

You could almost taste the desert sand in those. Here you are watching a cold CGI vehicle. The film is far from boring but it's almost impossible to care about anything that's going on. At least there is plenty of action that keeps this from being entirely catastrophic.

But what's maybe even worse: The movie is so forgettable, I forgot to write my review right after watching it last night.