Review of The Scorpion King (2002) by Harry W — 25 Aug 2013

You can't expect The Scorpion King to be anything less than a cheesy action adventure film but you can expect fun from it.

If you'd actually expect to see a serious historical film, you'd realise the fact that Dwayne Johnson is in the film as the titular role, as well as the fact that its actually a spin off of The Mummy Trilogy. It's still surely be a better piece than Oliver Stone's dreadful Alexander.

Of course, its no masterpiece. It's main theme is to be heavy on action and adventure, yet his causes the importance of the plot to get lost and reason for attempting to keep up with it and what is occurring to shrivel up amidst a visually monochromatic atmosphere and lack of storytelling initiative.

Plus, since the height of the film's success is intended to be the action adventure, you could hope for some fun in the gimmicks. But the adventure theme is too small scaled and the action is tainted by poor lighting. Although the action is fairly good in its high quantity and strong choreography with a lot of swift swings of the sword, the lighting throws it off from time to time.

Plus, Dwayne Johnson isn't an impressive lead. Although you couldn't expect him to as his fame as a professional wrestler is what caused him to be cast in such a bankable role, he has since built a career on many roles where he acts empty in a strong manner and gives strong line delivery with a mix of his physicality and voice articulation to convince viewers he is a man to fear. In The Scorpion King, none of his gimmicks are present and his attempts to deliver comedic lines in an actual comedic manner as opposed to the serious yet funny manner he is good at, proves ineffective in The Scorpion King. It's like Shaquille O'Neal's lead role in Kazaam, although Dwayne Johnson's performance is still significantly superior. Certainly not superior to establish a paycheck of $5.5 Million though. Still, his role as a wrestler makes him work the action well.

And on the lighter side, the atmosphere in The Scorpion King is fun because the humour and script is essentially cartoonish, like if Indiana Jones were a swordsman. Although the character isn't nearly as iconic or iconic at all for that matter, its good to see a resurgence in that form of genre after an absence from the spotlight.

The musical score is also good as it feels adventurous and helps the atmosphere flow with the story through its whole running time.

Michael Clarke Duncan was also good in his role due to his mix of booming voice and immaculate physicality rendering him great for he part.

Frankly, I feel like I would have really enjoyed The Scorpion King as a kid for its large quantity of sword fighting and adventure, and to a certain extent I still could today. But the extent isn't certain enough for me to give it a positive rating of any kind, mainly because of how The Scorpion King is bereft of the common thrills and inspiration of anything beyond monetary gain. It's just too lifeless for it to succeed, and it could have had more with something as simple as turning up the lights amidst the action sequences. Hell, they could fix that in post-production and Re-release it in an enhanced Blu-Ray edition, but until that day comes, 2 Stars.