The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Review

I loved The Mummy and The Mummy Returns so when I heard about The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, I of course wanted to see it.  I never made it to the theater to see it, but I did rent it tonight and I have to say I'm a little disappointed. 

For those of you who haven't seen the first movies, well, you really don't have to.  This one is pretty unrelated.  It might ruin it for you only because you know that Brendon Fraser survived both movies, but I think that's pretty obvious if you know there's a third one :)  Brendon Fraser DID survive, but he did not have the same moxy and attitude as the first two.  It was almost like "alright, I guess we gotta do this" instead of him being excited to be in the adventure as he was before. 

The second issue was his wife.  My husband warned me at the beginning that the actress from the first two movies would not be returning for this one, booooo.  Maria Bello played the wife instead and she did not fit.  Rachel Weisz portrayed the wife as a fun, curious, loveable and smart woman, however Maria instead seemed like the cocky, overly-confident woman without much charm to her at all.  The final main character was Alex, the son.  He was good, but not great.  I imagine they are prepping him to star on his own in The Mummy 4 (you just know there is going to be one) but I don't think he can stand on his own without Brendan Fraser.

As far as the story line goes, well it was a good back story and I liked the history of it.... but then... it got dull.  The fact is, this movie was very predictable for me.  I knew certain things would have to occur in order for them to have a big war at some point (you know that's gotta happen right?).  There was a lot of talking in this movie too.  Brendon had to have issues with his son, his son had to have issues with a girl, the girl had to have issues with her mother.  Talk Talk Talk... blah blah blah. 

While I felt the previous two movies were witty, sarcastic and fun, this one failed to deliver at the same level.  They tossed in some sarcastic remarks here and there but only got a chuckle from us where as in the last movies I actually laughed at some of their comments.  The bumbling character of Jonathan returned but even he seemed to have lame lines.  It was like they put them in these situations in the movie JUST so they could say some cheesy line that wasn't that funny. 

We watched the deleted scenes afterward and the good news is the made the right choice to cut those out!  All the scenes that were cut pretty much meant MORE TALKING!!!  Overall, it may sound like I hated the movie, but I'm really just warning you that it is not as great as the first two.  I still thought the story was interesting and I still wanted to see it through, but I just didn't get into it that much because I felt like I knew what would happen.  It was almost like the back story was a bit too simple and didn't leave much room for mystery.  I doubt Brendon Fraser will do another Mummy, and I don't think I'd watch one if it was just about his son Alex.  Give this a rental when you are bored, but don't expect the same quality as the first two.  Enjoy!!