Comments on: DVD Review: “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”

By: slappyfrog

slappyfrog — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:06:24 +0000

I think the Mummy films are great but it truly is a matter of expectations…I went in to Mummy 3 and Indy 4 thinking they were going to both suck but actually ended up liking the them both a lot.

And I do like the rest of the Mummy series.

By: Malchus

Malchus — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 06:11:19 +0000

But here's the thing, I didn't think the action in the new Indy film was all that well staged. Besides the motorcycle chase, everything went on For–ev—er. That chase through the jungle? What the hell was that? Awful, just plain awful. Worse, the effects were just okay. This is Spielberg and this is Lucas and this is ILM and I'm saying the effects were just “okay?” That tells you something was very wrong. The whole thing felt like Spielberg and Ford were sleepwalking through the movie and they did whatever Lucas asked.

And where was Sallah? It's not an Indy movie without his trusted best friend. Instead we had to put up with John Hurt's overacting and Karen Allen being under directed.

By: slappyfrog

slappyfrog — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 04:06:24 +0000

I think the Mummy films are great but it truly is a matter of expectations…I went in to Mummy 3 and Indy 4 thinking they were going to both suck but actually ended up liking the them both a lot.

And I do like the rest of the Mummy series.

By: slappyfrog

slappyfrog — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:06:24 +0000

I think the Mummy films are great but it truly is a matter of expectations…I went in to Mummy 3 and Indy 4 thinking they were going to both suck but actually ended up liking the them both a lot.

And I do like the rest of the Mummy series.

By: Malchus

Malchus — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:11:19 +0000

And where was Sallah? It's not an Indy movie without his trusted best friend. Instead we had to put up with John Hurt's overacting and Karen Allen being under directed.

By: BobCashill

BobCashill — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:48:44 +0000

True, it's hard to have many expectations for a Rob Cohen movie, not that I didn't enjoy his Bruce Lee biopic and the first Fast and the Furious. But for me this was Stealth-level. I missed whatever it was Stephen Sommers brought to the table, though he's in my permanent movie doghouse since Van Helsing.

By: Malchus

Malchus — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:30:46 +0000

Maybe it was high expectations vs. low expectations, but when the name Spielberg is attached and the words “Indiana Jones” are above the title, I hope to be entertained and not cursing the time I've spent watching the movie. I didn't feel that way after watching this Mummy movie.

By: BobCashill

BobCashill — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:26:02 +0000

I was admittedly mixed on Jones, but Spielberg still knows how to stage action in a classical way, without too much cutting and a respect for the geography and choreography of a sequence. (It's Lucas who has gone over to the dark side.) If you're at all CGI-averse, stay far away Mummy, which is a hodgepodge of incoherent effects (here come the Yeti!) for their own sake. And I liked the first one, anyway, and the poorly used Chinese cast of this one.

On the other hand, I tend to be more forgiving toward movies watched on DVD. There's less at stake, including the $12.50 (!) I have to pay at some Manhattan theaters. But I'd probably be reaching for the FF button fairly often during Mummy--not that I didn't enjoy Scott's to-hell-with-the-14%-approval-rating-on-Rotten Tomatoes-review. You should always call them like you see them. (As I did with The Dark Knight--my estimation of that is well below the 94% approval rating on RT.)

By: DwDunphy

DwDunphy — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:07:33 +0000

I have not seen this Mummy movie yet, but the fact that Indy 4 was reduced to a thousand wasted opportunities, Karen Allen as less an adventuress and more a shrieking tag-along, ball-smacking jokes, cutesy-pie CG groundhogs and cringe-inducing CG monkeys… I'm gonna go with The Mummy.

By: BobCashill

BobCashill — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:45:53 +0000

This was better than Indiana Jones? Revoke this man's DVD reviewing license now…