Parents' Guide to The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

The first two Mummy movies were far from action masterpieces, but when you compare them to THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR, they seem like Oscar contenders. Without director Stephen Sommers at the helm and Weisz playing Evie, the new movie lacks the central chemistry that made the first two films charmingly bearable. Although it's always a pleasure to see Li and Michelle Yeoh (who plays a witch who cursed the emperor and his army to their stone tombs) show off their considerable martial arts skills, the action sequences are cribbed from parts of The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean (note to action directors: undead skeleton armies are officially passe).

Although the battle scenes are what most moviegoers crave, that's no excuse for sloppy dialogue and poor acting. Why young newcomer Ford thinks a pseudo-Bronx accent peppered with his native Aussie cadences is what the son of a rich American and his educated English wife would sound like is rather misguided and continuously annoying. Fraser, meanwhile, who's proved that he's adept at more than a popcorn blockbuster, phones in a performance so blah that it's hard to believe his character was likable in the first two films. There's no doubt that this movie will attract young audiences desperate for more high-decibel, CGI-heavy violence, but it would've been so much better had this particular Mummy not been unearthed.