Before I spend any significant time in pontificating on just how bad The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (hereafter Mummy 3) really is, I should confess that I have a certain amount of fanboy affection for Brendan Fraser. It’s hard for me to not like one of his films. Alas, in the case of Mummy 3, the film really borders on a level of asinine that makes for downright painful viewing. Even my fondness for Fraser’s presence on the big screen doesn’t save this atrocity from the depths of total celluloid depravity.

Director Rob Cohen takes over the reins from Stephen Sommers, who helmed the first two films. Cohen’s style of storytelling clearly wanted to capture some of the apparent nostalgia of the first two Mummy films. Only there’s one big problem – it’s only been seven years since the last one, and the first two films really weren’t all that great to begin with.

SPOILER WARNING: I’ve long had a personal policy of spoiler-free reviews, but I’ll have to make an exception in this case because it’s just THAT bad.

Try to imagine, if you can, a scene where massive, overly-animated Yeti pounce on the villains only to kick one of the poor heavies over a roof in an impromptu football field goal, with the obligatory referee’s hand sign. If you think such a scene is an exercise of brilliant humor, then there’s not really much hope for you—you’ll probably love this movie. The rest of us will roll our eyes nearly out of their sockets.

Back to the faux nostalgia: The film opens a full twelve years after the events told of in The Mummy Returns with Rick O’Connel (Fraser) and his wife Evelyn (Maria Bello) in the full lap of luxury and retirement. They’re both clearly bored with life (as is the audience of the movie at this point) as they go through the ho-hum motions of reminiscing of their earlier adventures. Evelyn’s way to deal with the boredom was to write two books which “coincidentally” have the titles of both of the earlier films. Wait, that was supposed to be funny. Their one big moment of drama was an argument over how their now-twenty-year-old son Alex (Luke Ford) had just dropped out of college.

Alex, as it turns out, was actually following in Dad’s footsteps by digging up the statues of some old dead Chinese king in a quest for his own fortune and glory. In interviews, Fraser has repeatedly said that he was a fan of the Indiana Jones series, and always wanted to be Indiana Jones. Surely there’s a better way to reach for your dreams than to appear in this travesty; but I digress.

The last Indiana Jones film, as mediocre as it was, actually had a genuine (yet overblown) sense of nostalgia; after all, it had nearly twenty years to reflect on. Mummy 3, tried to capture that same sense of reflection, but ended up with little more than a cracked mirror.

One major element that the story lacks is a villain with any humanity. The first Mummy film introduced the tragic story of Imhotep as a lovestruck warlock who just wanted to resurrect his beloved. It was a fresh exploration on the age-old story of the Mummy. On the flip side, the heavy in this film is Emperor Han (Jet Li) who just wants to rule the world. Just Because. Yawn.

Mummy 3 does try to have at least one love triangle in this film, where Han wanted the witch Zi Iuan (Michelle Yeoh) for himself, and killed her beloved so that he would give him the gift of immortality. The beauty of cardboard characters is that they don’t have to have any real motivation to be “good” or “bad,” so there’s no time wasted on anything really tedious (read: important) — like characterization, plot, or plausibility.

Well, surprise, surprise, Zi Iuan doesn’t give him immortality at all, but rather curses Emperor Han and his entire army. Surprise, surprise, the whole army eventually gets resurrected (yeah, it’s a real spoiler, isn’t it?) and threatens the entire world. Of course, our “retired” O’Connell family has to save the day and the planet.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, the lovely (and immortal) Zi used her astronomical powers to resurrect her former lover who was the lone general who dared oppose Han in ancient times. Of course, the (un)dead general is surprisingly well-preserved for being buried underneath the Great Wall of China.

The script is bereft of any competence, and does little more than pander to the lowest common denominator in our society by offering nothing more than spoon-fed dialogue served to an audience that should feel more insulted with each passing frame. It’s a clear example of just how low a film can go before it gets regurgitated into a hash of half-chewed concepts that were bad to start with. This isn’t a movie to be avoided; it’s a movie to be shunned and discarded into the nearest incinerator.

The climactic battle is an explosive mess of CGI pandemonium that involves strafing airplanes, beheading zombies, and fiery explosions as only a Mummy can bring. Every bullet is a waste of space, as there’s only so much exploding sand that an audience will take before it becomes punishment. Even that doesn’t take long.

In an earlier scene where a crash landing is imminent, the pilot announces that the wheels are stuck. O’Connell laughs nervously in response and then asks “Why am I laughing?” The audience doesn’t know either, but the question invoked another in me: “Why am I watching this?”

Believe me, you’ll be asking yourself the same question.

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