THE SCORPION KING

By: Abbie Bernstein
Review Date: Friday, April 19, 2002

It's wrong for a reviewer to walk into a movie with preconceptions. However, enjoyable as the two recent Stephen Sommers MUMMY films have been, a spin-off starring the secondary villain in the second film whose onscreen history has been tweaked to make him more heroic, played by an actor whose primary previous experience has been in the World Wrestling Federation (nobody would deny that this counts as giving a performance, but still...), doesn't sound all that promising.

Well, surprise. While THE SCORPION KING isn't going to make anybody forget the swashbucklers of yore, or even Sommers' mummies, it is still entertaining on its own terms. Director Chuck Russell and Sommers (who has a shared producing credit here, as well as scripting with William Osborne and David Hayter, from a story by Sommers and Jonathan Hales) know what they're doing and what tone to take. The result is a lively pastiche of comic book action and emphatic B-movie motivations, all spinning along at a breakneck pace through sets and environments that are imaginatively designed and proficiently photographed.

In THE SCORPION KING, set in the era before the pharaohs, Mathayus (The Rock) is the last remaining Akadian, a famed race of assassins. When Mathayus' brother is killed, the warrior vows vengeance on King Memnon (Steven Brand), a tyrant who means to take over the known world. Mathayus means to take out Memnon's greatest advantage, a prophetic sorcerer who guides the king's every move but the sorcerer turns out to be the gorgeous Cassandra (Kelly Hu) and our hero hesitates, soon putting rescue above revenge. Although he professes to care for nothing but his oath, Mathayus finds that it's up to him to save the free people of this land from slavery and slaughter.



This is a familiar tale, to be sure. Russell and Co. don't have a new take on it, but they do know how to tell it to good effect the tone is broad enough to accommodate the outrageous costumes and flamboyant acting, but never so over-the-top that we feel overwhelmed by the camp. SCORPION never lingers too long on any one bit, so no jokes are hammered too hard. The close-up savvy Rock earns a lot of laughs simply by cocking his eyebrow the right way at the right moment, while Grant Heslov as the standard-issue scaredy-cat sidekick has a nimble delivery that turns his dialogue into throwaway gags. Brand is a perfectly good baddie, arch and arrogant without munching the scenery, Hu displays reasonable backbone (along with great looks) and Michael Clarke Duncan seems to be having a swell time as leader of a wild horde.


THE SCORPION KING is proof that there's a lot to be said for production values. The world here may be a never-never creation, but it's all of a piece and it doesn't look as though corners have been cut. The filmmakers also keep the joint jumping, with swords, arrows, fire ants, catapults, waterfalls, cobras... you name it, somebody's brandishing it, running through it or running away from it at any given moment.

THE SCORPION KING doesn't takes itself too seriously, but neither does it forget either its forward momentum or its modest internal consistency. It's not a great fantasy film, but as derivative barbarian adventures go, it's among the better examples of its breed.