Sunday, August 10, 2008

Here endeth the lesson pt 1

Well, after a long hiatus, I am here just blogging on about nothing. My brother is having a "grand" time right now, the olympics are in full swing and August is upon us at the movies. As evidenced by the quality of films. I once said I'd review movies, well here's mine for the Mummy 3.

Don't see it.

Well, not in theatres anyway. It never really grabs you one way or another, and there are WAAAAYYYY too many flaws for me to mention here. Actually, I'll just get going on them. We'll categorize them all for the sake of my fingers and the sake of you all.

1. Actors/Acting:
I want to start here, because it all really hinges on wether actors can suck you into the story or not. Some bad movies can still be counted good by watching the actor. (Liam Neeson in the Phantom Menace come to mind, as well as Ewan McGregor from all of the prequels.) Or sink a good/decent movie (Hayden Christensen in ANYTHING.)

Brendan Fraser once agains plays Rick O'Connell. He's good at being the fun adventure hero, and he does a fine job of bringing humor into his character. He's not given much to do, but he still comes off as a character worth watching.

Maria Bello playing Evelyn is stepping in for Rachel Weisz. Now, all I'll say to the sheer awkwardness of watching her is, you'll desperatly miss Rachel Weisz. She tries a British accent and it shows through that she is trying way to hard. She mugs her way through everything with this giant grin trying to be likeable, whereas Weisz just was likeable. She really shouldn't have been cast. Plus her and Brendan have ZERO chemistry between them, while on the other hand Rachel and Brendan oozing charm and love with eachother as well as individually.

The guy playing Alex. I can only call him that because I can't even remember the guy who plays him. He was that bad. He had no charm, he postured his way through the movie, trying to be cool, trying to be like his dad played by Brendan, (who in reality is only like 10 years his senior, and it shows.) and trying way, way WAY too hard to be sexy with the new girl/love interest. Just terrible. Eliminated him and the movie would have jumped way ahead in cool points, but alas they did not.

The Chinese girl/Love interest. No. Just terrible. The way she spoke tried to be all important and heavy, but just was badly delivered and acted. She has this one line with Alex (the son) and she says, "you stay here, I'll take care of the emperor." He says why don't I go and you stay or something, then she replies, in a terrible way, "Because I HAVE the ONLY weapon THAT can KILL HIM." Yeah, it sounds as bad as it looks.

John Hannah is always fun, his character was not really needed, but he's still always fun to watch and I love the view his character gives on things.

Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh. These two are the greatest asset to this movie, but also it's greatest detractor. With these two names, you want to see them more. They have to be right there in the thick of it. Jet Li especially. It was said that ONLY Jet Li could do this role. Well bull honky to that. Any martial artist could have. The way it all was staged and choreographed, anyone could have, they just wanted the name. Michelle Yeoh has the least to do in this movie, but one of the most vital roles in it. She's in all of ten minutes of the film. Much the same for Jet Li. He never is really in the movie until the end, or the extreme beginning. Plus they have a fight that just is badly done all around. It last 30 seconds. 30 SECONDS! For these two legends of martial arts, that is a crime. The fight itself was pure hornswaggle as well. Badly choreographed again and just as badly shot on film. It was all terrible.

I'll come back later for the rest of the review. With story and other elements.