The latest flick in the Mummy franchise sees the return of Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connell but takes us away from pre-war Egypt and relocates the action to China in 1947. If the idea was to refresh a franchise that would be best located on the scrapheap it didn't work and this could well be the picture that kills the series.
The story, such as it is, concerns Emperor Han (Jet Li) who is having a whale of a time conquering and pillaging and so forth. Concerned that he will never be able to complete his "great work" he decides to seek out the secret to eternal life. He enlists the help of witch Zi Yuan (Michelle Yeoh) who tricks the Emperor, cursing him and his army by turning them into stone.
Cut forward to the present day where the curse could be (and inevitably, is) undone, unleashing an almost-immortal warlord and his army upon the world. It is, predictably, a race against time to prevent the Emperor from completing the process that will give him immortality and to destroy his army.
Now, I have no problem at all with B-movie schlock and enjoy a popcorn-muncher with the best of them but this is highly uninspiring fare.
Its first major problem is a preoccupation with CGI effects. Apparently the filmmakers used over 1,000 visual effects shots in this film but aside from the Emperor's army coming to life these lack thrills or imagination.
It also gets in the way of what had the potential to be a thrilling fight between Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li, two legends of martial arts cinema. What could have been an exciting encounter is cut so short it is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it affair.
Which leads neatly into the film's second major problem: each of the characters is sold short by the action and the film's clunking script. At no point do any of the actors get a scene to really flex their acting muscles, nor are there any jaw-dropping stunts.
What makes this all more frustrating is that in the latter half of the film there are two moments that potentially have huge emotional impacts on the characters, yet neither is developed or dwelled on. Perhaps moments of grief in action movies are no longer in fashion? Instead within moments we are up and running again (or rather we are cutting between shots of actors gurning and CGI combat).
Without emotional hooks or any standout performances all that's left is a mess of dull visual effects shots and a hokey story. At no point does the film achieve any real suspense and its attempts at humour leave much to be desired. It even pulls out that comedy classic, the yak vomit sequence, in its desperation.
If this is the best the franchise has to offer after seven years in which to develop a sequel, perhaps it would be best buried for good.