The Scorpion King

Directed by Chuck Russell

Starring The Rock (Dwayne Johnson), Steven Brand, Kelly Hu, Michael Clarke Duncan and Grant Heslov

When the Mummy Returns came out I was so excited because I thought a movie starring Brendan Frasier and The Rock was going to be excellent. But then I saw the Mummy Returns, but I really didn't see The Rock in it. The Rock played the Scorpion King in Mummy Returns but he barely had any part in the movie at all. He was probably only on screen for 5 minutes, which in a 2 hour and 10 minute movie is basically a walk-on part. And while the Mummy Returns was a good movie, I felt greatly disappointed at the lack of The Rock in the film. But clearly my prayers were answered in The Scorpion King, where The Rock reprises his role as the Scorpion King in this prequel of a sequel. And this time I got a whole movie of The Rock and I was not disappointed. The film delivers much more action than its Mummy predecessors and does it in a much tighter 1 hour and 28 minutes.

Lately, the action genre has really started to fall apart. There have been so few really good action movies in the last few years as the movie industry has turned more to making sappy dramas, gross-out sex comedies and teen slasher flicks. The only identifiable action star still out there is Arnold Schwarzenegger and he's getting on in years. But in a sea of crap, Chuck Russell has put together something fun and enjoyable that really gets back to the good old days of action

He doesn't get the bad guy's head, but he does get the girl

Obviously this movie isn't going to win any awards and its never going to be placed on the list of top movies ever, but that's not the point. This movie isn't about creating a gripping story or sending a message, it's about having fun. And Russell does a very nice job in staying out of the way and just letting things happen. To often in recent films with fight sequences, the director decides to make an attempt at being artsy by putting a handheld camera right up close to the action. The point of this is to make the audience have more of a feel for what is going on in the film so that they feel like they are really there. But this is a terrible idea. What ends up is a sloppy, shaky image where you can't see most of the action because the people in it aren't really in the frame. Now Russell makes this mistake occasionally in this film, but for the most part, he just sets the camera up at a distance and lets the action take place within the frame. This allows the viewer to really see all that is happening and therefore allows them to really enjoy the cool fight sequences. And that is the best thing a director can do in a movie like this. The audience doesn't want to be part of a fight; they want to watch a fight. Just think about how it was for you in Middle School. If you saw two kids fighting you always stopped to watch and you enjoyed it. But you never broke up a fight or started fights, because you never wanted to get your ass beat. So let that be a lesson to any of you potential filmmakers, keep the camera out of the fight. It has no business there.

The biggest question that people will have about this film is the acting. Most people will assume that The Rock would be a terrible actor and that he would bring down this movie like a piledriver. But you must realize that as a WWF wrestler, he basically is an actor. And he must be quite good as an actor because he has created a persona so real that we no longer refer to him by his real name, but to the name of his persona, The Rock. And not surprisingly to me, The Rock (or Dwayne Johnson) does quite a good job of acting in this film. One of the problems that many actors have is that they feel that to express an emotion they must overstate the emotion. They cannot simply be upset, they have to cry and throw a hissy fit. They cannot simply be a person; they must be a hyper-emotional person. I call this the Julia Roberts Syndrome. But it is clear from watching this movie that The Rock is an actor capable of understanding how people really act. He knows that when people are angry they don't go ballistic, he recognizes that most emotional displays are very limited and very controlled. No one really acts like Julia Roberts does in movies. People very rarely get riled up with emotion. And to be a good actor, one must learn this fact. And while The Rock doesn't deliver the most amazing performance of the year, he is able to behave in a realistic manor, which is all I can really ask for. As for the other performers in this film, they all do a nice supporting job. The villain is reasonable and actually is unlikable (unlike the villain in Gladiator who I only hoped would die so the damn movie would be over) and Michael Clarke Duncan has a funny hairstyle. Plus the female lead is quite attractive. So this movie has it all.

The Scorpion King is not the best movie of the year. And by the end of the year, it probably won't even rank close to my top ten (hopefully). But it is fun and that is the whole point of going to the movies. The Rock has great potential to be the next Arnold or maybe even better than that. The only problem that he will have will be similar to that of Paul Reubens, AKA Pee Wee Herman. The Rock, just like Reubens, has created a persona so believable that it is hard to separate the persona from the actual man. I know that personally I can't see Reubens without thinking of Pee Wee, and many people will only be able to see Dwayne Johnson as The Rock. But I hope this will not limit a man who clearly has the talent to do good action movies for many years to come.

RATING: 60%