In Defense of “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”

In all the years that I’ve attempted to write or talk about film in a serious manner, at no point did I ever conceive that I’d one day be writing a post with a title beginning, “In Defense of The Mummy…” Yet here we are today: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor sits at 10% on Rottentomatoes and the reviews are absolutely brutal. Here’s but a sampling of some of the vitriol being spewed about this movie:

Masswyrm from Aintitcool writes:

[T]his looks distinctly like what it is. Shit. Unmitigated, inexcusable shit. I can’t remember the last time I looked around and saw so many critics positively mortified to be watching what they were watching. We were embarrassed to be in that theater. It is a humbling, humiliating experience that will take anyone who bitched about nuked fridges and swinging monkeys and show them just how much Spielberg and Lucas actually got right.

Stephen Holden from the New York Times writes:

In the movie’s futile drive to conjure visceral excitement, the action sequences are edited into an incoherent jumble that makes you feel trapped on a rickety airplane sitting in a pool of yak vomit.

Friend of /Film, Eric D. Snider writes the following about The Mummy:

At first I thought the film seemed like an Indiana Jones rip-off, but now I’m not sure it’s even that good. It’s more like an imitation of a rip-off, like Cohen and Co. once heard someone describe an Indiana Jones rip-off and they just copied down whatever they could remember, and then added some yeti.

Ouch. This hatred is so palpable, it reminds me of the good old days when all the poisonous screeds were reserved for Sex and the City.