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419 reviews in total

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40 out of 48 people found the following review useful:
An enjoyable film that got action, comedy and a love story…, 22 September 2008

Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico

Dwayne Johnson plays a natural-born hero called Mathayus… He starts off as an Akkadian mercenary crossing the ancient lands looking for his brother who is slain before his blazing eyes by a Nordic barbarian horde whose name is Memnon…

What has kept the vicious tyrant as the absolute conqueror of the land is the fact that he has a visionary sorceress by his side who knows when he should attack his enemies… Mathayus finds out that she's a sexy gorgeous woman who looks amazingly beautiful (Surely the audience is teased ceaselessly by her cleavage-revealing…). So Mathayus forgets his commission to kill her, and a kind of romance begins to flourish between the two as he tries to carry out his assignment…

Kelly Hu plays Cassandra, the female sorcerer who had beauty, charisma, cleverness, and enigma… In the beginning of the film, we're not quite sure where she stands… But when she first sees Mathayus, she's interested in the well-mannered warrior who's strong, brave, loyal and sincere… She realizes that he might me the future king who can save her from her power-mad jailer…

As the ruthless conqueror, Memnon (Steven Brand) has got all of the skills needed to attain global domination… He has also got the force and the will to accomplish it… The combination was pretty scary…

Michael Clarke Duncan plays the fearsome Balthazar, the Nubian King, the strong ally of Mathayus…

Chuck Russell's "The Scorpion King" is a visual feast, and an entertaining action film… It has sexy harem girls, poison arrows, quicksand, an army of red ants, black scorpions, cobras, explosions, and a lot of fun… So don't miss it!

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53 out of 80 people found the following review useful:
So he's...the bad guy?, 24 October 2004

Author: Shawn Watson (gator_macready@yahoo.com) from The Underverse

Okay, I'm confused. The Mummy Returns portrays the Scorpion King as some evil tyrant who wants to take over the world by smiting any and all civilizations in his way. But that's exactly the opposite of the same character in his very own movie. In fact he struggles to overthrow an evil ruler for those very reasons.

So when, and why, did he become bad? I'm afraid I'm not following this. The movie, however, is entertaining, if rather short and silly. Chuck Russell tries to cram in loads of fighting and hokum as he can. It works and The Rock is very cool as said King (or Mathayus) and former Jason victim Kelly Hu is gorgeous as the scantily-clad Cassandra. Grant Heslov and Michael Clarke Duncan fill out their usual roles as ethnic comic-relief and big, muscley guy.

The film has slightly less integrity to it than the Mummy movies. This is evident with the fun and lively, but completely inappropriate, score by John Debney. I'm not expecting anything like his Passion of the Christ score but blaring death metal guitars seem kinda out of place in a movie set 3000 years BC.

But this movie is a cheeseburger, not a 17-course dinner. So why bother complaining. After all it's a prequel of a sequel of a movie that was a re-make of a movie that was made in the 30's. But it's well made and loads of fun so just go along with it and you'll enjoy.

Filmed in Panavision the DVD is in perfect 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with very loud and thrilling Dolby/DTS 5.1 sound. The extras are fluff, but that's to be expected.

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38 out of 63 people found the following review useful:
A reasonably unrealistic "Kimmerian" movie, 28 September 2005

Author: andriy-tanatar from Toronto

To put it short, "The Scorpion King" is not a bad movie - for the genre. Just don't expect it to be realistic or have some deep plot.

If you have ever seen "Conan" movies, you probably know the setting: early ages, a bunch of "lost" civilizations, some "emperors" whose armies march the world and a lonely hero who tries to stop him. Blend in a touch of magic (old technologies, paranormal, whatever - just to taste), add some "slashnig" sequences - and - voilà - you get the movie.

Well, it sounds quite simple, but since "Red Sonja" I can't remember anything worth watching. Now this is the film: reasonably bad, quite cliché and not very imaginative. Still, it has quite a bit of eye-candy, and, in some sense, it's superior even to the famed "Gladiator" as it doesn't pretend to be any more than it is. Probably, it could have been at least 20 minutes longer, but let's blame it on the rising cost of production. Worth watching if you know perfectly well what you want. 7/10.

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23 out of 37 people found the following review useful:
NOT TOO BAD...COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER, 23 April 2002
Author: Big Movie Fan from England

Firstly, there were many great things about The Scorpion King. The Rock played a real good part and he certainly has a bright future in the acting industry. The beautiful Kelly Hu showed that she can be good on the big screen and the ever reliable Michael Clarke Duncan played a great part as well. The action scenes were hard hitting and brutal and the scenery was fantastic as well.

The only thing that spoiled the film for me was the fact that it was not an original idea. The plot has been done in so many movies before. Sometimes in the movie world, certain plots are churned out time and time again and you just get that feeling of deja vu. The plot for this film has been done in dozens of movies and countless TV shows.

I saw this film with a friend of mine and he really really enjoyed it. However, he usually likes cop movies and hasn't seen many fantasy adventure movies so watching this was a first for him. I have seen dozens of movies like this and whilst it was very good, I did get that feeling of familiarity.

But anyway, I still recommend it. The fight scenes are awesome and there are some funny scenes in it. And again, the Rock does have a future as an actor. I just hope that his next project is a fresh idea.

I'm going to really be awkward here but there's three other things that bothered me about this movie. There was a short scene with an Indian elephant in. Did ancient Egypt have elephants? I'm no wildlife expert but I didn't think they did. Secondly, wasn't it amazing that there was such a variety of accents in the film. Lastly, gunpowder in ancient Egypt? No way!

I'm just getting old though-watch and enjoy!

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21 out of 36 people found the following review useful:
Tied Too Loosely To "The Mummy", 8 May 2002

Author: EmperorNortonII from San Francisco, California

"The Scorpion King" is a prequel from the "Mummy" franchise. However, fans of the previous "Mummy" movies may be in for a disappointment. Granted, the imagery may be impressive, and the action is exciting, but apart from a very few details, "Scorpion King" may as well be a completely different movie. In quality, it fares about as well as the average sword-and-sandal epic. There is a camp factor that hangs over the story, that you feel when listening to some passages of dialogue. Also noticebale are Grant Hislov's comic relief role as Arpid, and Kelly Hu as the belly-baring sorceress Cassandra. Wrestling fans may enjoy this vehicle for the Rock, but I don't think many others will.

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7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
The Rock is the next Arnold!, 29 April 2002

Author: videofreak2002 (videofreak2002@aol.com) from Walbridge, Ohio

"The Scorpion King," The Rock's film debut, after "The Mummy Returns," is an excellent movie. It was exciting from beginning to end. Great story, great characters, great action, and great special effects make it all into one wild ride of a movie. It's so good to see Chuck Russell (director of "A Nightmare On Elm Street 3," "The Mask," and "Eraser") back in the director's chair after his disappointing 2000 film "Bless The Child." The Rock (The People's Champion) is going to be the next action hero in the future, but, right now, he's concentrating on his wrestling. After all that, I'll be glad to see him back on the big screen. If you're a big fan of The Rock, then check out "The Scorpion King." He rocks! Rocky, Rocky, Rocky, Rocky!!!!

A+ ****** (out of ****** stars) 13/13

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6 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Thoroughly enjoyable! Stephen Sommers' "Mummy 3" indeed!, 5 May 2002

Author: Ruby Liang (ruby_fff) from sf, usa

Stephen Sommers, who wrote and directed "The Mummy" 1999 and "The Mummy Returns" 2001, also co-wrote the story and the screenplay, and co-produced "The Scorpion King" this year!

The Mummy energy, practically a trademark of Sommers, is definitely encompassed in this entertaining action/legend movie of "The Scorpion King." Led by Dwayne Johnson "The Rock" as Mathayus the Warrior with a heart, lovely Kelly Hu as Cassandra the Sorceress and object of beauty, sought by Steven Brand as Memnon the convincing evil menace of it all, and Michael Clarke Duncan as the equally brave ally Balthazar to Mathayus, this is your basic good vs. evil story splashed with fun and suspense - almost like an animated Disney film but with real live actors. An action packed myth/legend of a story, with humor/laughter sprinkled here and there at good pacing, along with special/digital effects, I almost felt at times it feels like the epic animation "Princess Mononoke," where they have the villagers (tribes here) rounding up and backing the heroine (Mathayus here) and fighting to get rid of the evil source (Memnon here.)

Other films have similar themes before: an earlier endeavor of Stephen Sommers, who wrote and directed "Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book" 1994, with Jason Scott Lee, Sam Neill, Cary Elwes, Lena Headey and John Cleese; director Xavier Koller's (received Oscar's Best Foreign Film "Journey of Hope" 1990) "Squanto: A Warrior's Tale" 1994; not forgetting director Richard Donner's "LadyHawke" 1985 with Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Alfred Molina.

If you want to escape and have an enjoyable action movie, to forget your stress and strains beyond the world of cinema, go for it!

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6 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Seen it, loved it, 5 May 2002

Author: eggrulestheworld from Little Ponton, England

People say this is "The Rocks" first acting piece, the fact the he's been acting for years in the wwf seems to have nothing to do with this.

The rocks abilities to do a promo comes in great for this film, his mixture with comic and physical abiltiy makes the Scorpion King as must see film.

Micheal Clarke Duncan and Kelly Hu both bring in strong performances to help the film.

The only down is the length, after the Mummy and Mummy Returns you expect a slightly longer film, but it's not so bad.

Film

10/10

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
better-than-expected Conanesque family fare, 25 November 2008

Author: OldAle1 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Noot as ridiculous as first might appear: take a very popular series with a charismatic couple of young stars with at least slight acting talent -- replace those stars with a WWE muscleman of limited thespian talents, and a beautiful but pretty well unknown Eurasian starlet -- completely change the setting, time, and tone of the film from its predecessors -- and drop the budget by about 40% from the immediate previous film. Recipe for disaster, right? Not really. Not when the first two films in the "trilogy" were "The Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns", which don't have a whole lot of quality to drop off from in the first place; and not when your original star is the dubious pretty-boy Brendan Fraser. I'll admit I was a little scared at the prospect of seeing a film starring "The Rock", but ultimately I was won over if not by his charm (or lack of it) than by his seeming good humor at playing in what is essentially a neo-Conan movie. If the first two films took their primary inspiration from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" it's perhaps fair to say that they suffer in part by being such unworthy descendants of a rather superior adventure film; the Conan films on the other hand aren't really anything great as film-making, and The Rock doesn't really do so badly in comparison with Ahhnold; hey, at least his English is fluent. The action moves along, Kelly Hu is indeed a babe, and the film has a quite reasonable running time of an hour and half, not enough time to get me bored and irritated. The most significant problem I had with the film is really that it couldn't seem to make up its mind as to whether it wanted to be a more grown-up, violent action movie or a kid's adventure story. Thus the PG-13 rating and the rather toned-down (if not emasculated) Michael Clark Duncan character. Still, it's good stupid fun and far and away the best of the three films.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Perfect eye candy movie, 26 February 2005

Author: Hang_All_Drunkdrivers

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The Rock plays the scorpion king who is the good guy battling the evil Memnon back in ancient times. That's the whole plot but Rock makes a great action star and the film is helped immensely by the gorgeous kelly hu playing the sorceress. I also saw her in "the librarian - quest for the spear" and she is one hot babe and deserves to be a super-star. Michael Clark Duncan also has a decent part as the Rock's friend/enemy Balthazar. In the movie "green mile" he played a guy 7 feet tall and 450 pounds. Here he looks to be about 6 feet and 250!

Lots of silly scenes in the movie. SPOILER Early in the flik the rock and another guy are buried up to their heads in the sand with the fire ants heading towards them. How do they get out of this? In the TV version at least, no explanation is given. The other guy is just all of the sudden out of the sand and he digs out Rock! And the fire ants are truly pathetic special fx. Just orange blobs on the screen.

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