The Scorpion King: Review By slysnide

Following the success of "The Mummy Returns" (2001), Universal sought a spinoff through Alphaville Films & WWE films. With a script by Stephen Sommers, David Hayter, and William Osborne, Chuck Russell took the director's chair in this action/adventure which is a throwback to the typical legend of how the underrated warrior overthrew the evil dictator to restore peace to the kingdom. Or in most realistic cases, another dictatorship. For let's face it, the Scorpion King wasn't that nice a guy in the brief prologue to the second film.

Starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson in the titular role, the yet to be crowned Mathayus--the last Akkadian mercenary--finds himself and his brother on a mission from tribal elders to assassinate a kingdom's sorceress Cassandra (Kelly Hu) to prevent the kingdom's evil Emperor Memnon (Steven Brand) from continuing his reign of terror against nomad tribes. But when the plan goes awry, and Cassandra demands him to be spared, Mathayus undertakes the long way around to accomplish a different mission, to assassinate Memnon himself to avenge the murder of a fallen comrade. But he soon finds himself getting more intimately involved with everyone else's plight than he chooses.

Meeting a loony loser Arpid (Grant Heslov), Mathayus showcases his compassion as he refuses to kill this annoying idiot in honor of an agreement not to. So despite his imposing presence, you get the type of guy Mathayus is. And along the way he also meets the scientist Philos (Bernard Hill) whose inventions can come in handy. Not to mention his general knowledge at foreseeing the technical future. Lastly there's a fellow intimidating nomad leader Balthazar (Michael Clarke Duncan) who provides perhaps one decent duel. And so it is in this unlikely foursome of Arpid, Philos, Balthazar, and Cassandra that Mathayus learns life lessons which are meant to be metaphors for how he leads his people--as you find in such stories. And thus, a romance between Mathayus and Cassandra also is imminent as a King finds his Queen in his legend as these tales so often translate.

Memnon on the other hand isn't much of a villain, as he seeks to restore peace and order among the largely violent nomad tribes, and seems very progressive overall. Though like all societal changes, they can only be achieved with great bloodshed, as he must remain cruel to be intimidating to accomplish all he sets out to do, such as completing his manifest destiny on the western African coast. But to stop Mathayus, he'll dispatch enemies like the ruthless Thorak (Ralf Moller) and several other useless cronies. However, they provide some decent action scenes, such as Mathayus taking on several cronies in a cavern with quicksand and sand falls. After all, when going solo, stealthy kills are the way to go!

What the film really has going for itself however is the humor. It only takes itself semi-seriously, and The Rock has always been great at injecting that funny side into these films. He never goes over the top and portrays such characters in too serious a manner as it would become horrible. With the exception of "Faster" (2010) you'll find this to be the case in about all of his action films. For let's face it, one guy no matter how tough isn't going to takedown a kingdom of military strength with the help of a few nomads and scientific brilliance in the manner he does here. Much like a videogame he seems unstoppable. Yet with the right amount of humor, it plays well. Otherwise, this would've been hard to swallow without that extra grain of salt sprinkled here and there throughout.

From director Chuck Russell we've seen such films like "a Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" (1986), "The Blob" (1988), "The Mask" (1994), and "Eraser" (1996), so you know the type of caliber or lack thereof you'll be getting out of this film. Though from a typical action film with the soloist dominating hoards of evildoers, then such a director is proper, as the film is neither horrible, nor terrific, but not good or bad either. It just lies somewhere in the middle and would make for a decent weekday movie. If it was direct to video, then it'd be considered even better.