Movie Review: The Scorpion King (2002)

by Idris Hsi - Apr 20, 2002

The Scorpion King was a project planned last year as a prequel to The Mummy Returns which itself was a sequel to The Mummy. In the 10 minute commercial that began "The Mummy Returns", we were all pretty convinced that The Rock was a nasty evil warlord. Thanks to the Discovery Channel and some friendly rumors, I heard that there was actually some guy in Real Life called The Scorpion King way back when. As the victim of a busy week and possibly some form of brain shut down compounded by living under the graduate school version of a rock, I thought The Scorpion King was going to discuss the evolution and history of this guy and how he went from small potatoes to some guy who invokes the god Anubis to get an army of the dead. And if you believed that, you're in worse shape than I am.

We're first introduced to the movie by a quick plot summary were we learn that some power-hungry master swordsman named Memnon with the help of his prophetic sorcerer is slowly taking over all the neighboring tribes and putting to death anyone who resists. The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) stars as some dude named Mathayus who, with his brother (Branscombe Richmond) and some random Lemming, are the last of the Acadians, trained as deadly fighters and throwers of all things metal, and work as Assassins for Hire. After an unnecessary fight scene that successfully showed us Mathayus's High Kick-Ass Rating and the poor dialogue writing skills of the writers, we see the last ragtag group of tribal holdouts organizing to take on Memnon. They figure that by killing Memnon's sorcerer, they can demoralize his troops and take over. The Acadians are hired for the job.

After that, it's pretty much one cliché after another as the kill goes badly, his brother is killed by Memnon, Mathayus vows revenge, Mathayus escapes with the help of the Comic Relief (Grant Heslov), he finds the Love Interest, they re-escape, Memnon assembles a posse, Mathayus kills the posse, etc. etc. etc. When the main character is basically a slightly more articulate version of Conan the Barbarian, you're not just going to get much in the way of plot variation from the old stand-bys.

Now, this movie could have been very painful instead of just head-splittingly bad. It steals from lots of movies with impunity. The dialogue is miserable. The acting is so-so. Someone raided the Recycle Bin of an old ILM computer for the special effects. This movie doesn't really add anything to the genre or to the world of action scenes. But, there are a couple of surprisingly funny moments that are predicated on a set of audience predictions. And, The Rock manages to save some of the movie by following the Arnold Schwarzenegger Career Guide - Look very buff, flex in every camera shot, take every action scene very seriously and deliver the flat dialogue with as much poise and charm as possible. I hate to admit this but I'm kind of looking forward to The Rock's next movie - as long as it isn't The Scorpion King 2.

I give this prequel a 2 on the Good Movie Scale and a 6.5 on the Bad Movie Scale. Don't see The Scorpion King if you're looking for, well, anything remotely resembling a good movie. Do go if you want a movie that has a tongue-in-cheek attitude, some funny bits here and there, and pays homage to (read: outrageously steals from) some very good movies. This is definitely a "large group of silly people on a weekend night" movie.

Our Drive-In Totals:

Good Movie Scale: 2
Bad Movie Scale: 6.5