In a nutshell: it's awful!

Spin-off movies are risky endeavours. Following the enormous success of The Mummy and The Mummy Returns it was destiny that the studio would either develop another sequel or a spin-off. In 2002 it apparently seemed more convenient to develop an adventure featuring an underused and underdeveloped character from The Mummy Returns. In this case, pro wrestler The Rock (whose real name is Dwayne Johnson) had about 5 minutes of genuine screen-time in the aforementioned The Mummy Returns, not counting the extra few minutes when he appeared as a poorly-rendered CGI creation of a hybrid between a scorpion and a man. The Scorpion King attempts to give The Rock's minor character a proper back-story in the form of a swords-and-sandals medieval flick akin to Conan the Barbarian.

The initial worrying factor was that The Rock is a pro wrestler. In The Mummy Returns he really doesn't say anything at all and never showed much acting. This begged the question...could a wrestler carry a movie and display satisfactory acting skills?
Still, in the lead-up to the film's release I had expected some decent results, especially with Stephen Sommers (the writer/director of the first two The Mummy flicks) among those involved with writing the screenplay. The Scorpion King falls into a very unsuccessful genre where swords, axes, bows and arrows are utilised to dispatch enemies. There certainly aren't very many decent flicks in this genre so far. Well...there still aren't. This is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination.

The story is set roughly ten years preceding the main character's appearance in The Mummy Returns. Already, there is a massive fault in the film's story. In The Mummy Returns he's a villain with plans for world domination. Here, we're supposed to cheer for him as the hero. Oops...
Mathayus (The Rock) is among the last of the Akkadian warriors. These warriors are trained from birth as elite mercenaries who work for a hefty price. As fate would have it, he's hired to kill someone but finds himself in an elaborate set-up.
The plot is trite, clichéd and boring. It wants to be a thrill-a-minute action ride, but it's not. It's lame! Furthermore, it's entirely forgettable with the inclusion of the pointless and irritating action scenes that are poorly shot and difficult to believe.

The biggest flaw of the movie relates to the dreadfully clichéd script and below average actors. The characters in particular are clichéd beyond belief. There's the muscle-bound protagonist who exists to kill as many people as possible, the beautiful woman who spends half the time naked, the annoying sidekick who's supposed to be funny and witty, the big bad guy who sits on his throne and can carry out preposterous superhuman abilities (I mean, he can catch an arrow? Come on!) and of course a strong warrior to fight alongside the big muscle-bound hero. Probably the most disappointing facet of the characters is the poor way they've been written. The central bad guy, played by Steven Brand, never strikes fear or intimidation into the audience. He's a forgettable weakling and does not belong in a film such as this. Looking back at Conan the Barbarian, the main villain was played with sinister gusto by the capable James Earl Jones. Jones had a commanding voice and always seemed threatening. How I miss the days of the 80s.

The Rock does everything he's supposed to do throughout the movie. He delivers corny lines rather well - better than Arnold Schwarzenegger did in his first few movies. But the pro wrestler isn't the problem: the problem lies in everything else the film has to offer. It appears that the script suffered from a dose of committee writing - that is, lots of people insisting their ideas get inserted. Kelly Hu's role is a prime example. One voice says that she must be naked most of the time, while another voice insists that nothing naughty is ever shown because they must get their PG-13 rating from the MPAA. Hu therefore emerges from the water with strategically placed long hair covering up the juicy bits.

There's also the fact of the action. The script includes an abundance of pointless action to cover up for the lack of plot. Then the rating again comes into question. With the MPAA giving the film a PG-13 rating, it means more profitable run at the box office. We hear the gore, but don't see it. Once again I must compare this to Conan the Barbarian: in that film we cheer for the hero and love seeing the villains getting their just deserts as they are very violently offed. Let's face it - over-the-top violence is entertaining! In this case, though, The Scorpion King has no balls. It aims for money rather than quality. With the inclusion of more brutal battle violence the film would have at least been a guilty pleasure. Unfortunately, it can't even achieve that status. It's crap! Pure, genuine, bloodless crap with nothing redeeming!

Another thing: if one looks at Conan the Barbarian it's more entertaining because there always seems to be a sense of gritty realism. The Scorpion King is embarrassingly low-brow because of how unbelievable it is! It defies the laws of physics, and of course must include slow motion fight moves. Like in the final battle when an arrow is shot at a man. We follow the arrow in ultra slow motion, then it collides with a man and he's thrown back several feet. How they hell can an arrow, weighing a little less than a kilo, knock a 90kg man off his feet?! And I have no idea how contemporary directors settle on the inaccurate conclusion that slo-mo fight scenes look cool. Maybe the teenagers enjoy savouring the pathetic concept, but in my opinion it's cheap and unnecessary. It completely takes you out of the movie. It reminds you that it's just a fluffy piece of celluloid. If one wants to see things in slow motion, use the option on your DVD player!

All things considered, The Scorpion King wants to be in the league of the films that spawned it. The Mummy Returns is quite an awful movie, but at least it had an entertainment value. The Scorpion King has too many flaws. Everything is poorly done. Bad directing (director Chuck Russell was quite inexperienced), poor editing, over-the-top special effects, unbelievable plot points and a story riddled with endless clichés. It's so predictable! When it comes to the action genre, things usually are predictable. Be that as it may, the ride should be fun to take. The Scorpion King is not a fun ride to take at all! You'll be sneering instead of enjoying. It's so incredibly stupid!!! Worse yet, Kelly Hu's character of a sorceress appears to be a direct duplication of Jane Seymour's character in the James Bond film Live and Let Die. When filmmakers are taking inspirations from a spy series for a Conan the Barbarian facsimile, you know there's something horribly wrong here.

If only the script and story were as strong as the film's title actor. Followed by The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior.

2.1/10