“You’d be surprised, Mr. Conway, age is a limit we impose upon ourselves.”
– Chang from Lost Horizon (1937)

“What say you? What say you? I am Isildur’s heir. Fight for me. And I will hold your oaths fulfilled. What say you?”
– Aragorn from The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
– Dr. Indiana Jones from Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

We live in very interesting times. A year ago, I would never have given any thought to Rob Cohen’s The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor. The first two Mummy films were fun, disposable entertainment that owed more to the Indiana Jones films than to the great Mummy films from Universal Pictures and Hammer Film Productions. No one would call Stephen Sommers a visionary, but he knew how to make decent summer popcorn films loaded with CGI effects and pleasing characters. The best thing to come out of The Mummy Returns was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the Scorpion King. He even got his spin off film the following year– The Scorpion King. If anything, the films showed that The Rock was the rightful heir to the action hero genre. In December of last year, National Treasure: Book Of Secrets came out and that fun film was inspired by the Indiana Jones films as well. It served as a warm up to this summer’s eagerly awaited, Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. When the new Indiana Jones film finally opened in May of this year, it was a huge disappointment. The magic was missing for the most part. It never came together; it was incredibly disjointed. The most amazing thing was that given the nineteen year absence, the film felt rushed. The film’s lackluster appeal heightened my interest in two other films that were not high on my radar, The Incredible Hulk and The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor. The Incredible Hulk benefited greatly from the goodwill generated by Iron Man. I am not sure the film would have been received as well had it not been for Iron Man and the very nice Robert Downey Jr. cameo. By default, The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor was looking more and more like a late summer winner rather than a desperate attempt to revive a series of recycled films.

Continue reading ‘The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor: Taking A Lesser Ride’

The house itself is an organic being. Like the best horror films and ghost stories, the structure itself is a pulsating and breathing organism. Bayona’s orphanage is not that different from the Bates Motel in Psycho; the horrible house in The Amityville Horror; the house in Burnt Offerings; the Overlook Hotel in The Shining and of course, the Freeling household in Poltergeist.

Is it possible to like a performance in a film, but be disappointed with the finished product? That is the question I have been asking myself since exiting the latest cinematic version of Richard Matheson’s timeless I Am Legend.

The film could have easily been called The Longest Month. For thirty days, Eben, Melissa, Eben’s brother, Jake (Mark Rendall) and a handful of survivors must figure out ways to endure until sunlight returns. The best thing to do is to hide and figure out how to outlast these super powerful predators. Guerrilla warfare tactics will come into play, but it seems the vampires are always one step ahead of their human prey.