The Scorpion King | REVIEW

As you may not may not know, I'm a pro-wrestling fan. I enjoyed watching guys like The Undertaker and Stone Cold Steve Austin beat the living craploads outta' each other back in the late 90's and early 00's. Wrestling's been a lil' down lately, but one guy's career seems to have picked up tremendously. His name is Dwayne Johnson, better known to the millions of wrestling fans as The Rock. Having said that, I hereby declare The Scorpion King a complete waste of time. Seriously.

The Scorpion King is a spin-off the famous Mummy series, and if you recall well, we get a glimpse of 'The Scorpion King' himself during the prologue of The Mummy Returns. We see him again in the end, but technically it's not him at all...just some oversized 3D thing that has metal legs or something like that. It looked awfully fake-ish too. Anyway, unlike The Mummy Returns, The Scorpion King is actually the good dude in this flick. Obviously. Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson plays Mathayus, the last true Akkadian mercenary, who is assigned to kill Memnon's sorcerer whose prophetic powers allow Memnon to rule his empire with an iron fist. Mathayus sneaks into Memnon's camp and finds his way to the sorcerer's tent. However, his plans change when he discovers that Memnon's sorcerer is actually a beautiful sorceress called Cassandra. Having second thoughts about a kill for the first time, Mathayus and his brother are discovered by Memnon's people and their plans foiled. Mathayus loses his brother in the battle, yet manages to escape. He must now find a way back into Memnon's territory to avenge his brother's death and stop Memnon's reign once and for all.

Sounds like a pretty decent story, huh? Full of intense action, one hot Kelly Hu, and The Rock making an impact on the big screen. Right? Oh, how wrong you are. Despite all the hype and excitement, for me, The Scorpion King fails as a good movie. It's mediocre to the bone, it has lame comedy, and very poor acting skills. Being a wrestling fan, I enjoyed cheering for The Rock back in the day, and I had expected him to at least bring some quality to the big screen. He didn't and neither did any of the other cast. Kelly Hu is in there, Michael Clarke Duncan is in there, Bernard Hill is in there...and they all look like they don't even want to be in this gig. I was disappointed beyond mention after watching this movie in the theater. I even wondered if a refund was possible. Dwayne Johnson can try to remove 'The Rock' from his name all he wants, but till this day, he's portrayed the same characteristics in every movie he's acted in and to be honest, he's always playing 'The Rock'.

The Scorpion King was directed by Chuck Russel. I figured maybe this guy would do the movie some justice and pull it off well since this is the same guy who helmed The Mask and big-time actioners like Eraser. I wasn't expecting highly intellectual and superb quality stuff; all I wanted was a fun movie ala The Mummy Returns, something that I could enjoy or at least watch again on TV. Needless to say, I never bothered to watch The Scorpion King again. Ever.

What confuses me is why would The Rock make a complete jump from wrestling and enter a platform where nobody gives a s**t about him? I'm not saying this because I enjoy watching WWE, but because it's seriously baffling. Here's a guy who has reached an iconic status in the world of sports-entertainment. Anybody who's anybody, wrestling fan or not, knows who The Rock is. And they know his catchphrases, his taunts, and his popular gestures. In wrestling, he reached a realm beyond that of superstardom. So why quit so soon? I understand that people have dreams to achieve and want to move away from an industry once they've done all there is to do, but I still feel what The Rock did was absurd. If he had at least done some indies, or played characters that were hard to play and that needed surreal acting abilities, then it would be understandable. Being called 'the next Arnold' is not something I'd call an achievement. It's subjective, but I don't think the poeple who called The Rock that were praising him when they said it. The Rock *cough* I mean Dwayne Johnson has even been nominated for a f*ckin' Razzie Award for Worst Actor. He left a legion of fans and an industry where he was an icon + future legend for this? Seriously confusing stuff, people.

The reason I brought up the whole back story about The Rock is because there's nothing much to say about The Scorpion King, other than the fact that it's really not worth the time or money. It's silly, it's not all that humorous, and it's ultimately incredibly predictable. The best time to catch this would be when all other channels are showing reruns and / or there's nothing else to do. Your car has been washed, you've given your pet a bath, no homework, no housework, girlfriend / boyfriend / husband / wife has left you or doesn't want sex, you're done walking around in circles, you're tired of stealing the neighbor's car, porn isn't amusing anymore, you've looked at the sky long enough, and boredom seems to be killing you slowly....only then will The Scorpion King act as a worthy last resort.

Okay, in all seriousness, it isn't a disaster. It isn't Epic Movie. Now that was a effin' disaster. The Scorpion King is basically fun if there's nothing else to do and you're halfway bored to death. Okay, so maybe it is that bad. Watch it for the mere sake of watching something.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wrap : I give The Scorpion King a 1.2 out of 5.0. I hated it.

P.S : Bad movies aside, we're only less than two weeks away from this year's summer phenomenon, The Dark Knight...which is going to kick all kinds of ass! Young, old, male, female, animal, mutant, alien...all kinds of ass from all sorts of places. Oh, the anticipation!