Hey folks, Harry here with a pair of reviews for THE SCORPION KING. Seems that the reshoots they did early this year might have made the difference between a miserable time and a good time at the cinemas. Frankly I'm glad. I hate staring at the horrible trailers for this film and seeing a movie with Chuck Russell's name on it looking bad... again. Chuck is a genre director with my favorite ELM STREET film, that excellently cool BLOB remake and THE MASK, which while by no means perfect, it was tres cool. So... Will this not suck? There's beginning to look like it is a partly cloudy day, which means you shouldn't get burned, but there is a slight chance of scattered showers. Here ya go with a bit from the tornado spotters...
Although im a fan of both MUMMY 1 & 2, i was not planning on seeing THE SCORPION KING due to the bland trailer and my assumption that THE ROCK wouldnt be able to carry a movie in its entirety (and lets not forget his character in MUMMY RETURNS is mostly cgi). But as fate would have it, my friend and i were given free passes to a press screening last friday night in century city, and we jumped on it. Before i go on, let me say this: The MUMMY's are not great films, but they are entertaining. Both movies are, at times, clever, thrilling, and funny... and both movies have nice cgi used effectively on a massive scale within the scope of the films. I am able to take in some films as high art, and some as summer popcorn fun, but if you dont believe in "popcorn" movies and If you dont like the MUMMY's, stay far far away from THE SCORPION KING.
The Scorpion king is directed by Chuck Russell, director of ELM STREET 3, THE BLOB, ERASER, THE MASK, and the ever-horrible BLESS THE CHILD. NOT the greatest resume.
Basic Plot: Theres an evil warlord with a beautiful psychic woman at his side guiding him through victory after victory. THE ROCK is from a warrior tribe and is hired to assassinate the psychic woman and thus stop the reign of the evil warlord. To say anything more will reveal plot twists... but basically there isnt much more plot to be told.
The Rock: Hes suprisingly pretty good. He's charasmatic, funny, delivers lines well, a definite powerful presence on screen, and he does all sorts of funny facial expressions with good comedic timing (and the right editing).
The Warlord: He's rather a bland bad guy, but hes an excellent warrior and he's smart, he gives tTHE ROCK a run for his money.
Psychic woman: BEAUTIFUL! Shes like an asian CATHERINE ZETA, and you see her half naked the whole movie... oh yeah, and shes a good little actor.
Michael Clarke Duncan: He's too good for this movie, he's slumming it. But he does fuck many-a-warrior up and hes HUGE (musclewise) in this movie, you see him with his shirt off and the audience was gasping.
CGI: TERRIBLE. HORRIBLE. PATHETIC. not impressive, fake, what more can i say? there is a scene where THE ROCK is left for dead to get devoured by killer ants (cool huh?) and the ants look like cartoons, it was frustrating.
Cinematography: Nice, you wont be dissapointed, many beautiful vistas and establishing shots, many horizon shots and large desert scenes.
Script: pretty basic, funny at times, corny at other times, a fleshed out story line about the psychic woman losing her virginity, a heavy handed "birth of gunpowder" subplot was lame, make note: This movie is devoid of any "message" which suprised me. The dialogue over all was so so, pretty much what you would expect in a movie of this caliber.
Action/Fighting: Pretty damn good. Nowhere near BLADE 2, but THE ROCK actually does some jackie Chan stuff, some great sword fighting, and an excellent "stealth assasin" sequence where he takes out 10 bad guys in a dark cave.
OVERALL: SEE THIS AS A MATINEE. Its a fun movie, its worth $5 and the entire audience i was with was laughing and cheering and clapping throughout. There are some cool sequences (THE OPENING) and some really pedestrian ones (THE ENDING, Michael Clarke vs The Rock). But make no mistake, the film is vaccuous and you wont remember it 10 minutes later.
Keep Rockin Harry,
The Man With No Name
Now for Jemma McFatBack....
Hey there Harry, long time reader, hope I’ve got something new for you. You can refer to me as Jemma McFatBack. This was a UK press screening tonight in Leicester Square. We were told all reviews were embargoed until week-commencing 15th. God knows why. Well, actually, I do. Serious critics will deride it for the fact that it’s made up of slick, showy bombast and nothing else. But there will be some who, with tongue-in-cheek, enjoyed it. Lord knows I did.
The Scorpion King – All You Need To Know
It’s very silly, and rocks like hell.
The Scorpion King – A Minor Point
I didn’t do that ‘rocks’ pun on purpose, and I’m not proud of it.
The Scorpion King – In A Bit More Detail
You probably know the story, and you probably don’t care. The Rock is The Scorpion King, a bad-ass assassin. He’s paid to help off some sneering dictator by killing the scantily-clad sorceress who helps him to victory in battle. The Rock finds her, falls for her, kicks the bad-guy’s ass. Michael Clark Duncan turns up, looks mean, does some fighting.
The film is 90 minutes long. And F-U-N. NOT in a The Mummy/ Mummy Returns way either. Sure, there’s dodgy CGI. But 99% of the time, our heroes aren’t fighting against it. The CGI does the backgrounds, PEOPLE do the fighting. With BIG SWORDS, clenched fists and crunching guitar music. Dwayne is great up on the big screen – it’s his wrestling ring act pumped up a few notches, and WAY more violent. No blood (of course, this is designed to make money: a PG-13. Not to Universal: This WILL make money).
So yeah, 90 minutes long. None of the pretension, none of the boredom of the Mummy flicks. Just big dumb action, with a vicious kinetic energy. Only one of the big set pieces fails (a fight in a sandstorm about half way through), but the rest rule the roost. Especially the finale, which weaves together 3 or 4 separate fight sequences and crashes them all together for a marvellous crescendo in a way that Blade 2’s House Of Pain sequence failed to do (sorry Harry, that editing sucked).
So, erm, has this been a coherent review? No. But my brain is still dizzied that I enjoyed a WWF star vehicle directed by the man who made Eraser and Bless The Child. One thing though. See it somewhere they’ll play it BIG and LOUD. They did tonight. And it blew me away.
