Does “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” hold up?

16 years ago
 For Your ntertainment
By Troy Haines
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     It bears mentioning that before seeing this movie, I had heard from many sources that it was absolutely awful. I find that your preconceptions about a movie have a lot to do with your enjoyment of that movie. 

For example, I have never anticipated a movie as much as I did “The Fast and the Furious” and consequently it was a terrific letdown, whereas I hadn’t heard a single thing about “American History X” and it became one of my all-time favorite movies.
    Perhaps it is because I expected “The Mummy” to be terrible going into the experience that I found myself reluctantly enjoying it for the first 45 minutes. It recaptured some of the silliness and fun that the first installment had (and which was lacking from part two, which I have nothing at all positive to say about) and Brendan Fraser’s return performance as hero Rick O’Connell actually managed to capture my attention. Fraser’s performances are wildly varied, and range from the positively horrendous (as in “Monkeybone”) to the sublimely amazing (see “Gods and Monsters) so I didn’t know what to expect, but he came through admirably.
    Outside of Michelle Yeoh’s performance as Zi Juan (which was one of the worst I’ve seen) nothing much bothered me about the first half of the movie. Even Maria Bello’s horrible British accent didn’t detract. Bello is always great, but she isn’t British, not even by a stretch.
    So after seeing the beginning I was wondering why there was so much negativity about this movie. Then I found out. In a pivotal fight scene with the emperor, played by Jet Li (what is he doing in a movie like this?) the good guys enlist the help of some local Yetis. That’s right, I said Yetis. After one Yeti kicks the Emperors general over an upright and another Yeti signals that the extra point is good, I knew why it had been so poorly reviewed.
    The movie went on to receive all of its negative commentary. From bad sight gags to low-brow body function jokes, “The Mummy” fell on its face in the second half. Even the sometimes spectacular locations were offset by sub-par special effects. One thing that can be said about this movie is that while it did receive a PG-13 rating (for adventure action and violence) it seemed very family friendly for the most part, so you can take the kids. Grade: C-