Death is only the beginning.
Aug. 7th, 2008 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arishaSo I want to post about The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor but don't know how to start it so excuse me if I skip any sort of introduction.
There is a little joke in the beginning of the movie where Evie is doing a reading from her latest romance-adventure novel. A member of the audience asks her if the character of Scarlett O'Keefe (lol I'm not the only one who's been reading too much GWTW) is based on her; we see Evie's face for the first time as she replies, "I must say I'm an entirely different person." Yeah, you know how we know she's an entirely different person?
BECAUSE EVELYN O'CONNELL DOES NOT WRITE ROMANCE NOVELS KTHXBYE
I learned that a different actress would be playing Evie at the same time I learned that there was going to be a new Mummy movie, and I honestly tried to get over that fact. And there was nothing wrong with this new actress, I mean she was fine in her role. The only problem was, that role wasn't Evie. Let me give you a better example. My favourite thing about Evie in the first two movies - and probably her prime characteristic, actually - is how she goes all fangirl over ancient history. I mean she's a total nerd, right?! She can read a bunch of different ancient languages and clutters the house with artifacts and one of my favourite little moments in the first movie is when she corrects Benny's interpretation of what Imhotep is saying. xD; ("'For all eternity,' idiot." xD; ) But in the third movie, this part of her character is all but completely left out. She doesn't get all excited at the sight of the artifacts her son has discovered; her reaction is more "Oh, congratulations, Alex, good job" than "OMG AN ANCIENT TOMB I LOVE ANCIENT TOMBS ADKSLKCDAESDKA!!" And the only time she shows off any sort of crazy ancient language skillz is when the Bad Guy forces her to read something written in ancient Chinese. Wait say what? What need does an Egyptologist have for ancient Chinese? What need does a spy (as she and Rick apparently were during the war) have for ancient Chinese?? When did she learn to read ancient Chinese??? She totally tells the bad guy that "ancient Chinese isn't [her] forte," but then she reads it perfectly anyway. Uhmmmm, filmmakers, I'm pretty sure learning ancient languages requires, like, a lot of work? I guess I should just be glad they didn't have her randomly knowing how to read ancient Japanese, because that is supposedly like the hardest thing ever. xD;
So without that whole part of her, Evie turned out to be really bland. :( And so did Rick, actually! Which makes me wonder if Rick was all that unique in the first place. Well maybe he wasn't, but in the first two movies I think he at least made more jokes or something ... Actually, this reminds me of something else: Mummy 3 has no ridiculous, laughable random sidekick!! Like The Mummy has Benny and Mummy 2 has Izzy and they do help the plot along but they also provide much lulz. There's this guy in Mummy 3 whose nickname is Mad Dog or something, and he flies them around in a plane with no seatbelts, so I guess he's supposed to be the new humourous sidekick guy? Only he has like two scenes and in one of them he isn't funny. This kind of leaves Rick with no one to joke around with, which might have been a more important part of his character than I realized before. aha.
PLUS, Rick and Evie weren't the ones trying to figure out what they had to do in order to defeat the mummy. There were a couple new characters leading them through the whole thing. "We must stab him with this cursed blade!!" Uh, okay, thanks. Now our main characters are less main characters and more pawns, since they have nothing left to figure out for themselves. :/
Oh and twenty-two-year-old Alex was really moody and annoying and I actually really missed the dorky kid he was before. And Jonathan was 100% underused. I guess I just felt like if you only have two of your original actors (and only three - four counting Alex - of your original characters), you should make better use of them in order to tie the sequel back to the movies that came before it. Because for the most part, this didn't really feel like a Mummy movie to me. With Evie off being a completely different character, a lot less dorky humour, less Jonathan than there should have been, plus an entirely different location (snow???) with entirely different characters, oh and the fact that THE MUMMIES WEREN'T ACTUALLY MUMMIES, I felt there was very little to tie this back to the first two movies. And so while I wouldn't say that Mummy 3 was bad, I did spend much of the movie missing the feel of the movies that came before it. :( I guess I'm disappointed because while I expected this movie to be less than fantastic (let's face it, Mummy 2 is a pretty horrible film, I just love it anyway), I hadn't thought it would be such a drastic departure from what came before it. So, sad. :(
Aaaaand I guess that's all I have to say about that? haha, yes, for all of you who didn't know, the Mummy movies are my guilty pleasure, or something. xDDD;
And while I'm at it, I guess I might as well quickly post about Wall-E, because I wanted to before and never got around to it.
· I enjoyed this movie more than I've enjoyed a Pixar movie since Toy Story 2, probably, but I still can't really give it a better review than "it was okay." I came out of the theatre feeling very conflicted about it and I kind of still haven't made up my mind.
· The first half hour or so of the movie was my favourite. I loved Wall-E wandering around Earth by himself, apparently the only robot left alive (I was hoping for an explanation for that but oh well). I actually kind of loved the part where he was stealing parts off of other robots in order to mend himself. There was some really interesting camerawork going on and the whole thing was so lonely and I just really, really loved it. As soon as Eve appeared I lost interest. But this is a continuing problem I have with Pixar movies. Their worldbuilding, their set-up is always brilliant. As soon as the plot kicks in, I'm bored. I totally see myself buying the Wall-E DVD and never watching past this first half hour or so.
· I think Wall-E should've permanently lost his memory at the end. I feel like I can't say this for fear that everyone who loved this movie will come attacking, but I really, honestly think it would've been better if he didn't get his memory back. It would've been a sad and lonely ending for him that would've tied back into the sad and lonely beginning. I loved when he went inside his "home" and started crushing things that earlier we had seen him treasure. There wasn't even any reason for him to regain his memory, let's be honest here. Because he and Eve are in TWU WUV? This brings me to another point ...
· I hated how the robots acted so human sometimes. hahaha this is actually a huge problem that I had with 10,000 BC - all of the ancient humans acted like modern humans. Like the movie could've been tons more interesting but they didn't even bother trying. You will sometimes hear me complain that a movie wasn't "quirky enough," or not as "quirky" as I expected it to be. In the case of 10,000 BC and Wall-E, I guess I just mean that it could've been a lot more interesting and slightly less mainstream if they had allowed the characters to act more like what they were, and less like modern humans. I didn't want Wall-E and Eve to fall in love because why would a robot fall in love? Why would it be programmed to do something like that? Oh and also, I was really freaked out when Wall-E had to PRY EVE'S ARM OUT OF HER BODY in order to hold her hand. That's not romantic, that's violent!!! Augh.
· I hated that the robots controlling the ship turned out to be TEH EVIL, or close enough. We were doing so well without an identifiable villain!! I hate when the plot is running along quite well based on other sources of conflict and then suddenly someone turns out to be evil. All righty then!
· I also thought the movie had too many messages and the ending was too happy too easily. I really want someone to write some serious fanfic where half the people from the Axiom are dead within the first month back on Earth and the captain has a nervous breakdown when he realizes that pizza does not grow on trees. BECAUSE I'M PRETTY SURE THAT IS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN.
Hahaha yes, I criticize these movies but I loved Journey to the Center of the Earth without reserve. GO FIGURE. xD!
There is a little joke in the beginning of the movie where Evie is doing a reading from her latest romance-adventure novel. A member of the audience asks her if the character of Scarlett O'Keefe (lol I'm not the only one who's been reading too much GWTW) is based on her; we see Evie's face for the first time as she replies, "I must say I'm an entirely different person." Yeah, you know how we know she's an entirely different person?
BECAUSE EVELYN O'CONNELL DOES NOT WRITE ROMANCE NOVELS KTHXBYE
I learned that a different actress would be playing Evie at the same time I learned that there was going to be a new Mummy movie, and I honestly tried to get over that fact. And there was nothing wrong with this new actress, I mean she was fine in her role. The only problem was, that role wasn't Evie. Let me give you a better example. My favourite thing about Evie in the first two movies - and probably her prime characteristic, actually - is how she goes all fangirl over ancient history. I mean she's a total nerd, right?! She can read a bunch of different ancient languages and clutters the house with artifacts and one of my favourite little moments in the first movie is when she corrects Benny's interpretation of what Imhotep is saying. xD; ("'For all eternity,' idiot." xD; ) But in the third movie, this part of her character is all but completely left out. She doesn't get all excited at the sight of the artifacts her son has discovered; her reaction is more "Oh, congratulations, Alex, good job" than "OMG AN ANCIENT TOMB I LOVE ANCIENT TOMBS ADKSLKCDAESDKA!!" And the only time she shows off any sort of crazy ancient language skillz is when the Bad Guy forces her to read something written in ancient Chinese. Wait say what? What need does an Egyptologist have for ancient Chinese? What need does a spy (as she and Rick apparently were during the war) have for ancient Chinese?? When did she learn to read ancient Chinese??? She totally tells the bad guy that "ancient Chinese isn't [her] forte," but then she reads it perfectly anyway. Uhmmmm, filmmakers, I'm pretty sure learning ancient languages requires, like, a lot of work? I guess I should just be glad they didn't have her randomly knowing how to read ancient Japanese, because that is supposedly like the hardest thing ever. xD;
So without that whole part of her, Evie turned out to be really bland. :( And so did Rick, actually! Which makes me wonder if Rick was all that unique in the first place. Well maybe he wasn't, but in the first two movies I think he at least made more jokes or something ... Actually, this reminds me of something else: Mummy 3 has no ridiculous, laughable random sidekick!! Like The Mummy has Benny and Mummy 2 has Izzy and they do help the plot along but they also provide much lulz. There's this guy in Mummy 3 whose nickname is Mad Dog or something, and he flies them around in a plane with no seatbelts, so I guess he's supposed to be the new humourous sidekick guy? Only he has like two scenes and in one of them he isn't funny. This kind of leaves Rick with no one to joke around with, which might have been a more important part of his character than I realized before. aha.
PLUS, Rick and Evie weren't the ones trying to figure out what they had to do in order to defeat the mummy. There were a couple new characters leading them through the whole thing. "We must stab him with this cursed blade!!" Uh, okay, thanks. Now our main characters are less main characters and more pawns, since they have nothing left to figure out for themselves. :/
Oh and twenty-two-year-old Alex was really moody and annoying and I actually really missed the dorky kid he was before. And Jonathan was 100% underused. I guess I just felt like if you only have two of your original actors (and only three - four counting Alex - of your original characters), you should make better use of them in order to tie the sequel back to the movies that came before it. Because for the most part, this didn't really feel like a Mummy movie to me. With Evie off being a completely different character, a lot less dorky humour, less Jonathan than there should have been, plus an entirely different location (snow???) with entirely different characters, oh and the fact that THE MUMMIES WEREN'T ACTUALLY MUMMIES, I felt there was very little to tie this back to the first two movies. And so while I wouldn't say that Mummy 3 was bad, I did spend much of the movie missing the feel of the movies that came before it. :( I guess I'm disappointed because while I expected this movie to be less than fantastic (let's face it, Mummy 2 is a pretty horrible film, I just love it anyway), I hadn't thought it would be such a drastic departure from what came before it. So, sad. :(
Aaaaand I guess that's all I have to say about that? haha, yes, for all of you who didn't know, the Mummy movies are my guilty pleasure, or something. xDDD;
And while I'm at it, I guess I might as well quickly post about Wall-E, because I wanted to before and never got around to it.
· I enjoyed this movie more than I've enjoyed a Pixar movie since Toy Story 2, probably, but I still can't really give it a better review than "it was okay." I came out of the theatre feeling very conflicted about it and I kind of still haven't made up my mind.
· The first half hour or so of the movie was my favourite. I loved Wall-E wandering around Earth by himself, apparently the only robot left alive (I was hoping for an explanation for that but oh well). I actually kind of loved the part where he was stealing parts off of other robots in order to mend himself. There was some really interesting camerawork going on and the whole thing was so lonely and I just really, really loved it. As soon as Eve appeared I lost interest. But this is a continuing problem I have with Pixar movies. Their worldbuilding, their set-up is always brilliant. As soon as the plot kicks in, I'm bored. I totally see myself buying the Wall-E DVD and never watching past this first half hour or so.
· I think Wall-E should've permanently lost his memory at the end. I feel like I can't say this for fear that everyone who loved this movie will come attacking, but I really, honestly think it would've been better if he didn't get his memory back. It would've been a sad and lonely ending for him that would've tied back into the sad and lonely beginning. I loved when he went inside his "home" and started crushing things that earlier we had seen him treasure. There wasn't even any reason for him to regain his memory, let's be honest here. Because he and Eve are in TWU WUV? This brings me to another point ...
· I hated how the robots acted so human sometimes. hahaha this is actually a huge problem that I had with 10,000 BC - all of the ancient humans acted like modern humans. Like the movie could've been tons more interesting but they didn't even bother trying. You will sometimes hear me complain that a movie wasn't "quirky enough," or not as "quirky" as I expected it to be. In the case of 10,000 BC and Wall-E, I guess I just mean that it could've been a lot more interesting and slightly less mainstream if they had allowed the characters to act more like what they were, and less like modern humans. I didn't want Wall-E and Eve to fall in love because why would a robot fall in love? Why would it be programmed to do something like that? Oh and also, I was really freaked out when Wall-E had to PRY EVE'S ARM OUT OF HER BODY in order to hold her hand. That's not romantic, that's violent!!! Augh.
· I hated that the robots controlling the ship turned out to be TEH EVIL, or close enough. We were doing so well without an identifiable villain!! I hate when the plot is running along quite well based on other sources of conflict and then suddenly someone turns out to be evil. All righty then!
· I also thought the movie had too many messages and the ending was too happy too easily. I really want someone to write some serious fanfic where half the people from the Axiom are dead within the first month back on Earth and the captain has a nervous breakdown when he realizes that pizza does not grow on trees. BECAUSE I'M PRETTY SURE THAT IS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN.
Hahaha yes, I criticize these movies but I loved Journey to the Center of the Earth without reserve. GO FIGURE. xD!