It's August, which means all the surprises for the summer movie fare are gone and we're now being served left overs and second rate entertainment. If you're looking for bland adventure fare this summer, I think you don't have to look any further than "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" a misstep and ill conceived sequel to "The Mummy" series that was about as monotonous and tedious as reading an actual text book on archaeology with director Rob Cohen's finger on a story that is horribly genre confused and utterly indecisive about where to take its narrative. Cohen and co. have admitted that this is a proposed launching point for a spin off with the O'Connell's son Alex getting in to adventures a la Indiana Jones, and that would be an admirable aspiration, were the character of Alex interesting at all. Because the way he's conceived here, he's a pale imitation of Indiana with a hint of Fraser's character with almost zero charisma. Generally, I'd be compelled to blame Luke Ford for his rather forgettable portrayal of the recurring character of the series, but actually I blame it on Gough and Millar whose script is about as lethargic as a typical sequel in a tired rehashed franchise from a studio still trying to keep it running.

"Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" is nothing but a series of concepts and plot elements that seem cool on paper, but never bind together to form a fluid narrative. There's yetis, stone mummies, a rotting mummy king, evil oriental soldiers, the star power of Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh, and the period setting, all of which is completely under developed with no energy to be found. The entire film feels like the creative crew are going through the motions to get our butts in the seats, pay our ticket and get out. Adults will almost have nothing to take away from this beyond the great special effects, and I suspect even preteen boys will be yawning and twiddling their fingers during pointless banter meant as back story for our characters.
 

Everyone in this production just seems to be working on a low frequency as Fraser plays O'Connell the exact same way he did back in 1999, and in this year's "Journey to the Center of the Earth." In the meantime, all the comedic timing and sharp wit from John Hannah's comic relief Jonathan Carnahan is missing with writers Gough and Millar handing the actor one liners that are often dead on arrival. Worse, the writers can never seem to provide an interesting reason why Carnahan is even in this movie. He has no purpose, nor an actual skill.

He just tags along and feels painfully shoe horned in to the story.  Maria Bello has big shoes to fill taking over for Rachel Weisz as Evie O'Connell (Weisz wisely opted out of starring due to creative differences--smart gal), whose character is reduced to a pale cardboard cut out of a character. Which doesn't seem to be the actress at all. Bello is a very talented woman, it's just the Gough and Millar never quite tackle the same dichotomous sexual tension between the proper Evie and rugged Rick. Instead, Evie seems more Western than ever and is almost as rugged as Rick, which immediately destroys any and all of the opposites attract formula we came to enjoy in the first two films. And when did she stop wearing glasses? Did they invent contacts in the early thirties? If this were Bello's first film, I guarantee this would have been the last we'd seen of her. Hard as I tried to, I just wasn't having any fun sitting through the third yawn inducing installment of "The Mummy" series. All the camp, menace, and urgency are missing in action in a haze of bland set pieces, and corny dialogue with Rick and Evie now acting as doting parents, and a character meant to carry on the series, while never making a good case as to why he deserves to.

Alex is one of the most bland action characters on screen this year, and even manages to be out weighed by Fraser who recycles the character mold from Rick and still ends up much more entertaining to sit through even though he's relegated to a secondary character. Poor Isabella Leong stars alongside the cast as the terrific Asian cliché Lin, whose mother is a key player in the Dragon Emperor misdeeds and Gough and Millar pull out all the stops in fleshing this stereotype on screen. She mispronounces words, misphrases popular American expressions, speaks in a light delicate whisper the entire time, and retroactively defeats any of the gravitas Yeoh and Li established in the first twenty minutes. Yeoh and Li try desperately to bring something to this film that we can leave with, but the predictable plot paired with the drawn on and utterly one dimensional back story that sucks up all excitement in the introduction of the film, their efforts are in vain. I haven't had a great relationship with Cohen's "The Mummy" series. Having seen both in theaters, it was clear then that there wasn't much to go with these characters, but at least they had gruesome fun and sheer entertainment to account for the vapid back stories and one note gimmicks. "The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor," however, isn't so lucky.