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According to Michelle Yeoh's narration (the voice is unmistakable), thousands of years ago, Jet Li's ‘Dragon Emperor'--loosely based on Qin Shi Huang Di, history's real unifier of China-- sought immortality by sending his most trusted general to fetch a powerful sorceress. Expecting a hag, the general locks eyes with a feisty Michelle Yeoh instead and it's love at first sight. When presented to Jet Li, who is unaware of the budding romance, he wants her as his GF. Sent to a distant library for research, the general and the sorceress not only find an ancient Sanskrit text containing the secret to eternal life, but a spare room for quality lovemaking. Too bad someone was spying on their coital activities. When Michelle Yeoh returns to the Emperor, who's fully aware of her indiscretion, she says the magic words and ‘poof!' he's immortal. To reward her, he says she can have anything she desires; she chooses marrying his general, telling the emperor she wants to spend the rest of her life with him. He obliges, bringing her to a balcony overlooking a courtyard where her lover's body is pulled apart by horses. Being the thoughtful megalomaniac he is, the emperor tries to kill her too, but all of a sudden mud is pouring out his eyes. Uh oh . . . So the spell was a curse on the emperor and his soldiers after all. She escapes mortally wounded while everyone around her is become clay statues.
With a new curse and another distorted chapter of history, the latest Mummy movie sets the stage for the Anglo-American O'Connell's to embark on a new quest. From the turbulence of ancient China the scene shifts to a peaceful stream somewhere in the English countryside, a locale forever connected with tranquility and boredom. We find Brendan Fraser's Rick O'Connell adopting the habits of an English gentleman by learning how to fish. Following instructions from a manual, he throws the rod and the hook gets caught in his neck. It's brutal and supposed to make you laugh, but it doesn't. His next attempt causes the line to get caught on a branch, when he tries retrieving it by climbing a tree, it breaks and he falls dawn. Frustrated by his own stupidity, he grabs a pistol and starts shooting the water. He's supposed to make us laugh by acting like Homer Simpson, only it's not funny.
His wife, on the other hand, has become a successful author and a totally different person. When the camera reveals Evie's latest incarnation during a reading at a bookstore-she's reinvented herself as an author of ‘mummy' novels-- the audience is treated to a middle-aged Kate Beckinsale. Who is she? Where's Rachel Weisz? The fuck if HailndKill knows, go check wikipedia. With the ‘rents stuck at home, their dashing only son is in China working on an archaeological dig, trying to uncover the tomb of this movie's arch villain. Little does he know of how susceptible his subject is to being resurrected. With the help of his buds they eventually find the tomb and are almost killed by its complex booby traps and a mysterious shaolin ninja girl, which doesn't deter them. O'Connell and his portly partner eventually reach a chamber with this giant square sarcophagus pulled by a chariot. Success!
Back in England, Mrs. O'Connel is stricken by writer's block, unable to begin her new book, whose predecessors were based on her experiences with the original Egyptian mummy. For reasons unknown to men but perfectly understood by women, after playing around with a sword in her study she moves downstairs and disrobes by the fireplace, revealing her nightgown, asking her husband, who's seated nearby, for sensual inspiration. Un-responsive, she goes to him and discovers he's asleep. This shows how advancing age is starting to derail their sex life. It's strange though; while the O'Connell heir has grown to a man, his mummy (no pun intended) and daddy haven't changed in appearance, not even a gray hair or two. Well, at least in Rick's case because his wife is inside somebody else's body. It's as if they had just vanquished Imhotep and the Scorpion King last month. So how does this swashbuckling couple reach China, you might ask? A representative of her Majesty (that's the queen of England) offers them a priceless jewel, with orders for its immediate return to a Shanghai museum. They readily oblige.
As coincidence would have it, their son is celebrating his career-making find in the same city. He drops by one evening at a nightclub called Imhotep's that's run by his uncle, also known as Evie's useless brother. The resulting family reunion is chilly given the younger O'Connell's long separation from his parents. Though this does not stop them from reaching the museum to hand over the jewel. Turns out its an elixi-- containing this blue fluid-- that could awaken Jet Li's emperor, whose sarcophagus is on display in the lobby. The villains responsible for reviving the emperor are a scheming Chinese warlord and his female secretary, who are in cahoots with the museum's curator. They hold the O'Connell's hostage and force Rick to open the emperor's sarcophagus, while their son is off chasing poontang, sexually harassing the shaolin ninja chick who tried killing him earlier. The predictable action runs its course and the resulting twist reveals the emperor isn't in his proper resting place (‘It's a eunuch!' ninja girl exclaims-you'd imagine she groped its crotch to find out). The audience learns he's cleverly encased inside the statue by the chariot and when the elixir accidentally spills on it he comes alive in the bat of an eye.
A supercharged chase scene follows that's spectacularly unimpressive despite the mayhem involving a truckload of fireworks and undead horses. As such encounters go Jet Li and his cohort--the warlord dude who has sworn total allegiance--elude our heroes, who retire to Imhotep's and join forces with ninja girl. Her stilted english and puffy cheeks a crass, racist stereotype nobody gives two shits about any longer. And why the fuck is the younger O'Connell in love with her? According to their new teammate, to stop the emperor, who moves around encased in terra cota, which he can regenerate at will, they must reach a Himalayan temple that shows the way to a magical pool in mythical Shangrila. So they take a plane to Mt. Everest together with a hairy yak that barfs on Evie's goofy brother when they crash land. Covered in filth and feeling wretched, he gasps the year's most abominable one liner: ‘The Yak yakked!' Putang ina ang corny! Fast-forward past an awkward trip across narrow mountain passes and resume ‘play' at the O'Connell's latest tangle with the Emperor's goons in the temple. This is the part where the bad guys are mauled by hulking yeti's after a ferocious gun battle. Despite the O'Connell's winning ingenuity, the Emperor still manages to discover Shangrila even when he's knocked down a cliff by a massive avalanche. In the first place, his powers are godly: a combination of super human martial arts, Street Fighter, and Start Wars Jedi Knight. The O'Connell's reach Shangrila (hindi ba nasa Ortigas lang ‘yun?) with a mortally wounded Rick laid out on a stretcher carried by yeti. They meet Michelle Yeoh's sorceress who uses magic water to cure Rick. She's actually ninja girl's mom and they're both thousands of years old. But this does not stop Jet Li and his warlord sidekick from reaching the pool of something-something. Immersing himself in its sparkling blue waters, he transforms into a three headed-dragon and kidnaps ninja girl for vague reasons. Of course, the O'Connell's and Michele Yeoh go after him.
As if traveling across the length of China took no more than an hour in a rickety plane, our heroes are back at the emperor's tomb armed to the teeth. This is where the climax takes place as the emperor, no longer a reanimated corpse entombed in clay, is now Jet Li in matching armor. Come to think of it, his mummy barely resembled him. Moving on. . . he revives his own terra cota legions and orders them to march. The story has it that walking past the Great Wall (conveniently located nearby) makes them invincible, thereby sealing humanity's fate. Unfortunately the consummate sorceress that's Michelle Yeoh resurrects the emperor's slaves and a huge battle takes place where no one gets killed because how can the undead slay the undead? Yet despite Jet Li's innate coolness, transforming into ferocious creatures at will and shit, he's still vanquished by the good guys' tactics. Once the mummy emperor dies (as well as Michelle Yeoh, who finally joins her BF from the start of the movie) you can forget anything else that follows. This latest outsourced installment is not so far removed from that other Brendan Fraser starrer of equal retardedness, ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth.'
It would have actually been better if our heroes had allowed the emperor and his invincible army of terra cota warriors to conquer the world. Here's why: According to (real) history, in the movie's 1947 setting, China was wracked by a civil war between the Communists, under Mao Tse Tung, and the US-backed Nationalists led by Chiang Kai Shek. To think this was after a brutal Japanese occupation, which followed an anarchic period where petty warlords governed whole chunks of the country, meaning China was in very bad shape at the time. Now if Jet Li's Dragon Emperor, aided by the warlord dude responsible for his resurrection, had engulfed China with his legions, then he would have spared its people from a brutal communist regime. Rather than suffer beneath the yoke of Chairman Mao, China submits to Jet Li (aka Dragon Emperor), a ruler steeped in the Confucian values of yore, and reemerges as the Middle Kingdom; the rightful center of our world. Tapos may magic powers pa yung leader nila. If Jet Li became the overlord of China, perhaps the Cold War wouldn't happen (kasi from China he'll conquer the world, gets?) and a living God shall walk the earth. Kakaasar naman kasi si Brendan Fraser eh, ang ko-corny pa ng mga hirit. STAY HEAVY
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