Review of The Scorpion King (2002) by Filipeneto — 20 Feb 2018

This film depicts essentially a civil war in which a group of warriors led by Mathayus will try to confront Memnon, an evil and ruthless king. The story seems to go up in Egypt before the time of the pharaohs, and seems to be slightly based on so-called "Scorpion Pharaoh", an obscure historical figure about which we know almost nothing. Directed by Chuck Russell, it has script by Stephen Sommers, the director who made "The Mummy" films, and which introduced in these films a hook for this one. The cast is led by Dwayne Johnson, the protagonist, and also has Steven Brand and Kelly Hu.

This film resembles visually films like "Mad Max" or "Conan the Barbarian" and television series like "Xena: Warrior Princess". They are films that seem based on Antiquity, to some extent, and who seek to be war epics or, at least, adventure movies. Thus, this film brings very little new things. The hook made in "The Mummy Returns" for these movie resulted in a major continuity paradox because the hero of this movie, the Scorpion King, is depicted there as a powerful villain. The cast is regular and doesn't bring anything interesting. Kely Hu was apparently chosen only based on their appearance under clothing as Dwayne Johnson was selected for his ability to action roles. In fact, Johnson is far from the sensitivity and depth required for a more versatile actor. The scenarios are abundant in imagination just as the costumes, which seems to freely mix elements of ancient civilizations with other right out of comics or of any indie fashion studio.

This movie could have been much better if it had been located properly in space and time. The problem with this film is the exaggerated imagination of the director and screenwriter. Everything has limits. The cast could also have been chosen better and the characters could have been built in a much more interesting way. Positive are the action scenes, using martial arts from Philippines about we never heard before, but that look good on the screen.