Review of The Scorpion King (2002) by Jerker S — 21 Sep 2008

The american wrestlingstar The Rock stars as THE SCORPION KING, a character much the same as Conan the Barbarian, with a certain Arnold Schwarzeneggerâ?¦ This movie is a spin-off of The Rocks character from the opening of THE MUMMY RETURNS, but this movie is neither written nor directed by Stephen Sommers, and the movie is made with a much smaller budget, which is a great benefit. Iâ??ll get back to that later on.

The Rock plays the assassin Mathayas, who is hired to kill a sorcerer who, with her visions helps a cruel leader to plan his attacks on the people. When she is taken care of, the resistance hope for a more fair fight where they might have a chance to win. The trained assassin Mathayas doesnâ??t have any doubts â?? until he faces the target that turns out to be a beautiful woman and who doesnâ??t have very strong connections to the leader and doesnâ??t mind to go with the muscular warrior.

No one should expect a great mind-blowing adventure, like CONAN â?? THE BARBARIAN, because itâ??s not that good. Maybe something a little lighter and in Hollywood mainstream type like CONAN â?? THE DESTROYER. The style is more light adventure and with a great senses of humour when they put The Rock in some ridiculous situations â?? as being shot out with a catapult in the air to land with a bunch of love-sick ladies who proceed to remove all his weapons â?? but it works really, really good. You just have to accept that style.

The style is a lot like THE MUMMY, but that is more because much of the action takes place outside in the desert. But this movie is much more based in reality and doesnâ??t depend that much on digital effects and most of the action scenes is made with real actors and the feeling is great and easy to get excited about.

From the actors I liked three of them most. Firstly Kelly Hu who plays the mysterious, and scantly clothed, sorcerer who gives a great visual impression. She doesnâ??t have that much to do in the movie, and it almost feel like her part could have been played by any random model from Hollywood. In the end she gets to get a little more fighting but sadly not enough to really show off her skills.

The big, black actor Michael Clarke Duncan (from THE GREEN MILE) plays Mathayas slightly sceptical companion, even though they donâ??t start out as best friends, and his best character trademark is his deep, powerful voice that gives a great style to his character. He gives a look that is very fitting to the part of an African warrior and leader for his people.

The movie also contain some great roles, like the bad guy and also Mathayas sidekick but they donâ??t make a strong impression and you forget them after leaving the movie theatre.

But the strongest impression is by The Rock as the lead character, The Scorpion King. If you like these muscular heroes in a great adventure, who doesnâ??t take themselves too seriously, but offers great action scenes I can certainly recommend THE SCORPION KING.