The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Rob Cohen’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is a poor adventure with enough good people in it to make the disappointment persistent. It wants the easy pleasure of family squabbling, supernatural danger and action that need not withstand much examination. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar’s screenplay keeps introducing trouble before it has given us much reason to enjoy the company. At 112 minutes, it has no shortage of things happening, but remarkably few stretches in which we care what happens next.

Brendan Fraser gives Rick O’Connell flashes of the loose, agreeable manner the material needs, without making the exchanges feel spontaneous. Maria Bello’s Evelyn O’Connell is hampered by an accent that draws attention away from the dialogue, which scarcely needs another obstacle. Luke Ford’s Alex O’Connell brings little warmth to the family scenes. We were bored by their bickering because the lines keep insisting on relationships the performances have not made us care about.

Michelle Yeoh gives Zi Yuan the authority the others struggle to establish. Her composure allows the supernatural business to sound consequential, and the film improves whenever it lets her hold our attention. Jet Li’s Han supplies a welcome threat, though the part gives him less opportunity than his presence promises. Neither performer gets enough room, an especially frustrating decision in an adventure that keeps asking for excitement while rationing its most persuasive people.

The action is less persuasive. Simon Duggan’s images are caught in staging so restless that following a movement becomes work, while editors Joel Negron and Kelly Matsumoto seldom give a sequence enough breathing space. We can register an impact without feeling how the bodies have reached it. Adventure can be ridiculous and still make physical sense; Rob Cohen too often seems satisfied that another burst of activity has arrived.

Nigel Phelps’s production design at least gives the spectacle a scale worth looking at, and Sanja Milkovic Hays’s costumes supply detail the hurried action does not always reward. The terracotta soldiers have a pleasing solidity as an image, even when the effects elsewhere look less convincing. There is evident effort in giving this adventure something to show us. It makes the indifferent handling of the people more dispiriting, particularly when the dialogue resumes and nobody has much worth saying.

Randy Edelman’s music provides an urgency that the scenes themselves often lack. It can encourage a sense of occasion, but it cannot tell us why one muddled confrontation matters more than another. John Hannah’s Jonathan Carnahan suffers from a similar problem: a performer willing to be funny still needs a usable line. Rob Cohen’s direction gives both music and comedy work that the writing and staging should already have done.

A family adventure needs leads whose company makes the pauses between set pieces enjoyable. This one makes those pauses feel longer than they are, and an affection for the genre will only take us so far. Admirers of Michelle Yeoh may find enough in her limited appearances to be glad they came. For an undemanding evening of fantasy adventure, we would choose something else.