REVIEW: ‘Scorpian King’ has deadly sting
The Scorpion King is the kind of movie that makes me want to quit my job, buy a Dreamcast, move to an Alabama trailer park and study ancient history – all at the same time.
That’s the problem with a movie that takes place in antiquity but stars a pro-wrestling icon. I didn’t know whether to sit there quietly and eat my popcorn or shout expletives at the bad guys while flipping them off with one of those giant foam fingers.
But before I could answer that question, my mind was overrun by another. (I had it set to short attention span – a prerequisite for this film.) How is it Kelly Hu seemed to have hair that knew just how to cover the rated-R parts of her chest while exposing everything else? It must have been magic hair – one of the many perks of being a sorceress.
Still, there’s more to this movie than foam fingers and magic hair, but not much. There’s a plot (not unlike the stories dreamed up by Vince McMahon and company). It’s recycled but not bad, and it goes something like this. The evil warlord Memnon, with the help of his sorceress (played by Hu), has conquered most of the known world. He’s not a nice guy, but no one dares oppose him – until now.
Enter The Rock, who plays Mathayus – a highly-trained assassin who is sworn to rid the world of Memnon. But before they can kill him, they must kill his sorcerer who of course turns out to be a sorceress – and a damn fine looking one at that.
This causes a problem for Mathayus who ends up getting captured because of his reluctance to kill Hu. Mathayus escapes, Hu has doubts about her day job and finally, since they are the two best looking people in the film, they develop a thing for each other, fight against evil and win the day.
If what I’ve written so far interests you in any way, then you have a real chance of enjoying this film. It’s one of those movies that aims for mediocre and hits the mark dead on.
I have few criticisms of this movie because I really wasn’t expecting anything when I saw it. Maybe that’s the key. If you don’t ask for much you can’t be disappointed. But you can be entertained, and I was.
Maybe it was the magic hair, but I more or less enjoyed The Scorpion King from start to finish. And somehow I doubt this will be the last we see of The Rock. This could be the start of a long line of marginal action films for him.
GRADE: B