The Scorpion King 2 - better than The Mummy 3...

Introduction

There are lots of franchises out there now, franchise being a relatively modern word in the cinematic lexicon, and probably something else that can be blamed on George Lucas - although that's only a guess. The Mummy was a successful reinvention of a genre piece by Stephen Sommers in the 90's with Brendan Fraser, number three in that series hitting the big screen this summer.

The Scorpion King, originally played by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, was introduced in some rather dodgy CGI at the end of the second Mummy film before Johnson got his very own film. Now in a straight-to-DVD affair comes a prequel to The Scorpion King.

Mathayus (Michael Copon) is the son of a famous mercenary who disobeys his father's instructions and goes to tryouts for the legendary King's army The Black Scorpions. During training, Mathayus manages to hack off Sargon (Randy Couture) the General leading the recruitment drive and is only saved from certain death by the intervention of his father and the King. Against his father's wishes, who shortly thereafter dies mysteriously from a mass scorpion attack, Mathayus is chosen to join the Black Scorpions and thus enters basic training in the art of the Black Scorpions, emerging six years later to find things have changed somewhat.

Sargon is now King and is ruling the land with an iron fist, cracking down on any dissent. Sargon picks Mathayus as his personal bodyguard but puts the young warrior in a bit of a pickle by insisting he kills a prisoner for badmouthing his king as a test of loyalty - it's Mathayus' brother. Well, quelle surprise, Mathayus kills just about all the guards and escapes Sargon's palace with his brother, although Sargon manages to use his magic and kills Mathuyas' sibling.

On the run, Mathayus heads to Egypt with childhood friend Layla (Karen Shenaz David) and after meeting Greek scribe Ari (Simon Quarterman), decides that he needs to recover the sword of Damocles from the kingdom of King Minos as the only weapon that will allow him to take down Sargon. The only problem is that the sword is actually in the ownership of Astarte (Natalie Becker), Queen of the Underworld.

Visual

Very nice looking film, but then it's 80's legend Russell Mulcahey behind the lens so I wouldn't expect anything different. The CGI work by South African FX house Condor Cape Town is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of it is really impressive, but some bits don't quite come up to scratch - the death of the scorpion king at the end is particularly bad after some otherwise acceptable mixed element views of said creature.

Audio

Good surround sound track with subtitles (which carry to the extras as well), plus corresponding tracks and subtitles in French and Spanish. The English subtitles do carry some rather annoying errors though: 'dessert' for 'desert' and 'insure' for 'ensure'.

Extras

Deleted Scenes (4 ½ minutes)

Gag Reel (2 minutes)

Making Of (14 minutes)

Fight Like An Akkadian: Black Scorpion Training Camp (6 minutes)

Becoming Sargon: One On One With Randy Couture (4 ½ minutes)

On Set With The Beautiful Leading Ladies (4 minutes)

Creating A Whole New World (8 ½ minutes) - a look at the production design with Tom Hannan, Production Designer

The Visual Effects of Scorpion King 2 (7 minutes) - looking at the work of South African SFX company Condor Cape Town

Overall

I went to see The Mummy 3 a week or so ago and, quite rarely for me, came away feeling really short-changed. I was therefore not really expecting much from this, especially as a straight-to-DVD release. It didn't help that we had UFC champion Randy Couture in a lead role, I'll admit I'm a little biased when it comes to all things UFC/WWE. Still, I was pleasantly surprised.

For a start, one of my favourite directors in Russell Mulcahey was behind the lens. Mulcahey has a great grasp of visuals, being behind Ultravox's classic Vienna video, Duran Duran's Arena film and, of course, Highlander. Mulcahey has his style stamped all over this and it is a bit of a visual treat, albeit a rather rushed and low budget one.

The acting is not the greatest, but it's a sword and sorcery film with dashes of mythology (although from a certain angle, I swear the Minotaur is an ancestor of the creature from Alien…). It's therefore not the most original film, essentially a revenge flick with dashes of Conan, Krull and just about any other genre film of its ilk - my first point of reference was actually Dungeons and Dragons, not the greatest film ever either. Randy Couture is ok as the headliner (albeit not the lead role), while Michael Copon is much better - although I wasn't aware when watching that he was a Blue Power Ranger in his acting past. Genre films are not renowned for Oscar winning acting performances though, as long as the film's enjoyable on a certain level you can forgive a lot. This is the case here.

Not bad and definitely more enjoyable than Mummy 3.