It’s a ‘Houston, we have a problem’ moment when a drop-kicking abominable snowman is the lone highlight in a mummy picture.
Such is the sad case in “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” the third dreadful installment of this tired, derivative franchise.
Devoid of originality, suspense, or humor, the film’s last hope remains with its actors, but they fail to inject spirit into a lifeless screenplay.
Director Rob Cohen (“The Fast and the Furious”) doesn’t help much either, favoring fast, slapdash cuts that don’t even let viewers enjoy the film’s respectable computer-generated graphics.
The plot mirrors this summer’s far superior “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” as well as several elements from the Indiana Jones series, from which the “Mummy” is a poorly drawn carbon copy.
The story begins in 50 B.C., when the merciless Emperor Han (Jet Li) is angling for world domination. Like any megalomaniac, he seeks immortality, and is granted it by a spell-conjuring sorceress (Michelle Yeoh).
He betrays her, and she pays him back by rendering him and his sizeable army in a suspended state of terracotta limbo.
Fast forward to post-World War II England, where archeologist Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) and wife Evelyn (Maria Bello) have hung up their swash-buckles and retired to the countryside. Meanwhile, their son, Alex (Luke Ford), has taken up where Mom and Dad left off, leaving college to dig in China. It’s there that he unearths the tomb of the Dragon Emperor—Han for short.
Little does young Alex know that he is a pawn of the evil General Yang (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang), whose mission is to awaken the emperor and enslave the world.
Rick and Evelyn find their way to China, and later, Shangri-La, but by then, audiences have no hope on the horizon: it’s lost.
Actually, by the time the couple is introduced, the film begins its steady decline.
Fraser is a lackluster leading man, given lines like: “Look kid, I’ve put down more mummies in my time than you!”
As bad as Fraser is, his son—who must have been conceived when Rick and Evelyn were in their teens—is worse. The Aussie actor has the look of an Abercrombie and Fitch model, and the screen presence of a scarab.
Bello, who takes over the role from Rachel Weisz, is miscast, and awkwardly struggles through her British accent.
The end hints at a fourth installment. King Tut must be rolling over in his sarcophagus.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Rated PG-13 for adventure action and violence. Running time: 112 minutes. With Brendan Fraser, Maria Bello, Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, John Hannah, Luke Ford, and Isabella Leong.
