"the scorpion king" review

[Guest chirs3]

Starring: Dwayne Johnson and Michael Clark Duncan

 

I'm going to open this review with a quote and rebuttal.

 

The quote:

 

"Every time Johnson performs a body-slam or a suplex the creepy wet sound of a thousand eyeballs rolling fills the theatre."

 

That was from Walter Chaw, of FILM FREAK CENTRAL.

 

The rebuttal:

 

You stupid motherfucking fucker of a fuck.

 

That quote was, I'm betting, a scare tactic. An attempt to get non-wrestling fans not to see it.

 

Why do I think that?

 

Because there was ONE, I say again ONE, body slam. And no suplexes. There was a reversed Irish Whip which a non-wrestling fan could never detect, and there was ONE body slam.

 

Stupid fuck.

 

Synopsis: There's a superduper bad guy, Memnon I think his name is. Long ago, at the beginning of his eVil campaign, he enslaved a sorceress. She was to look into the future and tell the outcome of battles, and with her, Memnon began racking up victories. Soon he had conquered almost the entire... area... place...

 

We come across a council, a meeting of the last resisting peopleses. They argue and bicker and whatnot, when the leader tells them to know their roles and shut their mouths (had to get a corny reference in, sorry). He says they need to kill Memnon. They say "We can't kill Memnon!" He says "Kill his sorceror, then kill him!"

 

Enter Dwayne, or Mathayus. He is, along with his two brothers, the last of the Akkadians (sp?), a mid-eastern race. They are supposedly cold-hearted assassins of great eVil, and Michael Clark Duncan wants nothing to do with them, but the leader of the council offers them 20 blood rupees to kill the sorceror. They accept.

 

Upon their initial attack, Mathayus' two brothers are killed, and he's made prisoner. Memnon confronts him and is about to kill him with the sorceress says "Stop! He shall not die tonight, and not by your hand or the hand of any of your men."

 

Memnon, a little dissapointed, then thinks of a way to kill him without him killing him... uh... yea...

 

We see Mathayus in a very... VERY painful looking way, and a lucky chance encounter with the comic relief character lets him escape. And upon doing so, he goes to exact revenge on Memnon.

 

The Good: Dwayne does a decent enough job as Mathayus, and all the actors except Mr. I'mNotGoodComicRelief do well. There is some good comic relief, but it all comes from Dwayne. The fight scenes are exceedingly well done, constantly criss-crossing between fun and edge-of-your-seat exciting. And there were a few nice touches that others around me didn't notice. Like Mathayus' bow... or the fact that Memnon was played up as the greatest swordsman ever, and shockingly enough, our hero Mathayus doesn't outsword him.

 

The Bad: First, the larger-than-Texas plothole. Now I know in hack-n-slash "Kill first ask questions later" movies, there are bound to be plotholes, and I'm ok with that, but there's one that's just too big to ignore.

 

In "The Mummy Returns" prologue, we learn that Mathayus was a feared and ruthless warrior who wanted to conquer all.

 

Nowhere in "The Scorpion King" does he even begin to look like that guy. Not in the beginning, the end, or anywhere in between. And don't expect an epilogue chronicling that part of his life.

 

The only other major complaint is the guy for comic relief. In a movie that's borderline action-comedy genre, a comic relief character should be funny. Not much so, here.

 

Dwayne: "Can we get in?"

Guy: "It's tighter than a crabs buttocks!"

 

Ha... aha... ha... eh... no.

 

Overall: Like "The Mummy Returns" without the killer scythe-wielding dogs. Pure adrenaline trash from start to finish, and damn if it isn't fun.

 

chirs3 gives "The Scorpion King" seven FIRE ANTS OF MUCH DISCOMFORT~! out of ten.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Are you crazy? I agree with you on the lack of wrestling moves (still not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, I mean the wrestling sequence was the only part I can remember from Blade 2 now), but the film was terrible.  Dwayne delivers every line like he was cutting a WWF promo, and he expects us to take him seriously as an actor? If he's really trying to be the next Hogan, he doesn't have to repeat the terrible acting aspect.

 

That being said, since I still have to write a real review for this (and hopefully before Backlash, damn distracting SmartMarks forum... ), I'll close by saying the best movie by a wrestler is still Rowdy Roddy Piper's They Live.

[Guest chirs3]

I don't recall saying Dwayne was the next big thing.

 

I said he was decent.

 

Decent in my book means anything better than Steven Segal.

 

This movie was stupid, stupid, stupid. But it was entertaining. For that, I say it's good.

 

And of course we aren't supposed to take him seriously as an actor, at least not yet. This wasn't a serious role.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Oh, I figured this was supposed to be at least a semi-serious role.  As it is, this is more along the lines of a cult classic.  On the whole it wasn't that great, but parts of it were entertaining so I'll probably rent it again when it comes out on DVD.  Dammit, I need to stop writing and focus on a proper review .

[Guest]

What do producers and excucutive producers do and what is the differentce between them?

[Guest Hogan Made Wrestling]

Executive producer doesn't mean shit. As one movie put it "an executive producing credit is what you give your secretary instead of a raise".

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

Vince's executive producer credit was for letting them use the name "The Rock" which is a WWFE trademark.

[Guest dreamer420]

Way to screw with them Vince!

[Guest evenflowDDT]

I marked out and acted like a general idiot when Vince McMahon's name popped up for executive producer.  I went "Oh, hell yeah!" and pointed it out to all my friends but none of them saw it.  Then afterwards in the car and consequently ever since, when I have commented on the film and its many short-comings, they would reply with a just as marked out/generally idiotic "You dissin' The Rock? You dissin' People's Elbow?" To which I reply "Shut up, you don't even watch wrestling..."

 

Anyway yea executive producers don't do anything but producers put up the money I think.

[Guest caboose]

I just got back from watching Scorpion King.

Geez did it suck for a lot of it.

Some parts were good.

Not the one liners though.

The Action Sequences were good.

As was Kelly Hu.

But damn it, Rocky was still sloppy.

Score: 5/10

[Guest pinnacleofallthingsmanly]

I had a good time at the movie because I could act a fool and laught at Michael Duncan Clarke's gut and hair. I can't say the movie was horrible or good. I had a good time at it though which is all i wanted to do.

 

In "The Mummy Returns" prologue, we learn that Mathayus was a feared and ruthless warrior who wanted to conquer all.

 

Nowhere in "The Scorpion King" does he even begin to look like that guy. Not in the beginning, the end, or anywhere in between. And don't expect an epilogue chronicling that part of his life.

 

The Rock is receiving $10 million to film the sequel after he finishes Hellderado, but you didn't hear that from me.

[Guest cobainwasmurdered]

Just got ack from seeing it and it sucked big time.

 

there were 5 or 6 12 year olds in the front row chanting rocky everytime he came on screen. Half way throough i got sick of it and told them to shut the fuck up. I enjoyed (well not enjoyed) the rest of the movie in silence.

[Guest jedisrm]

this is supposed to be a prequel to the mummy movies but had no plot that made it simular, not even any mummies in it either

[Guest gthureson]

This is a movie up there with 'Kull the Conqueror' and 'Starship Troopers'.

 

Meaning it won't win any awards, but damn, it was fun to watch.  Sure, there was big gaping plotholes.   You could see how it would end about a quarter of the way into it.

 

And they tried to have subplots and stuff that really went nowhere.

 

But it was fun, and I'd watch it again.   Rock was passable.  It was an action movie, not a costume drama, and he did just fine in that role.

 

Try and take the movie seriously, and you'll hate it.   Just sit down with a bag of popcorn, and you'll have fun.