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The Scorpion King (2002) More at IMDbPro »

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416 comments in total

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24 out of 27 people found the following comment 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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39 out of 65 people found the following comment 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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30 out of 52 people found the following comment 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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17 out of 28 people found the following comment 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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17 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
Makes The Mummy look like Battleship Potemkin but will probably satisfy teenage boys with its MTV version of a swords and sorcery adventure film, 19 April 2006
Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK

Mathayus is a legendary warrior but his people face a deadly foe in the form of Memnon and his evil army that is sweeping through the lands. Despatched to assassinate Memnon, Mathayus is forced to save a child and misses his opportunity. Fleeing the city, he kidnaps Memnon's sorcerer Cassandra (who he is also meant to kill) and heads into the desert. Deep in the Valley of the Dead, he intents to use Cassandra to draw Memnon out of the safety of his loyal city and into the desert where he will be more vulnerable and easier to kill.

Despite not being impressed at all by Mummy Returns, I thought I would veg out in front of this prequel/sequel/spin off thing which was just as well since vegging out mindlessly in front of it is pretty much all it is good for. The plot is essentially a collection of action scenes held together by some overly-serious plot with a bit of flesh and titillation thrown in just in case the teens get restless. It is very derivative and very obvious and, if you are actually paying much attention to it then you'll find it pretty tiresome at times. Of course in my brainless state I found it to be brightly colourful and noisy which was enough to keep my eyes busy and let my head rest. It would have been much more fun if the material had had its tongue in its cheek and allowed the performances to match this, but by taking itself a bit too seriously at times it only ends up looking silly.

The Rock is a solid star for this sort of thing but he isn't very versatile – he needs the material to match him rather than the other way round. By having a big character in an overly serious tale, he looks ill at ease and doesn't suit it that well. Brand is a by-the-numbers villain who fills the role but not much else. Hu is undoubtedly attractive and at first I felt that she was being exploited by having her in tiny clothes and as much flesh as possible; however then I watched her performance and realised she was just playing to her strengths. Duncan takes himself too seriously and his scenes lack fun – surprisingly even in the action scenes. Support from Hill, Heslov and others don't do much other than fill out the cast.

Overall then a fairly bland, uninspiring action movie that lacks excitement, tension, characters, story and indeed fun (which is where the biggest problem lies). It is probably enough of a film to satisfy teenage genre fans but I must confess that there was so little that was special that I could barely care about it when it was on and found it unmemorable by the time it was finished.

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13 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
Live free, 16 November 2006

Author: composer_mike from Edoass

-The Scorpion King character worked amazingly well in "Mummy Returns" and seeing a chance to tell more story and make more money Universal decided to give him his own movie which explains how he became what he is. Only problem is we don't learn a great deal about the guy. All we learn from the movie is how he got his army and that's it. We don't learn how he turned and become the conqueror that he becomes in "Mummy Returns". In this one he's just a sweet guy that inherits an army. It's like we see him at the start of his journey which would have been great if the movie wasn't poorly made.

-The movie suffers from an uninteresting script that pulls every cliché that one can think of. There' the comic relief that has to make a joke out of everything and fails to garner any actual laughs. There's the brother that has to die by the hands of the villain so our hero can have a purpose for what he does in the movie. There's also the one guy that starts out as an enemy then becomes his best friend in the movie, and of course my personal favorite, the hero gets the girl at the end of the movie. If it was a parody of movies like that then it would be fine, but this is suppose to be a fun adventure movie and ends up being anything but.

-Whiles "Mummy Returns" was Rock's first movie, he didn't really get to be in an entire movie till this. There's no question that he gave it his all in this movie and it really shows. He gives 1000% to the action stuff, 1000% to the acting and pretty much everything else. It's just that the script is so god awful that it makes him out to be the same cliché action hero we've seen far too many times. He's tough yet nice, and he can fight and also be sensitive at the same time. It is nice to see that Rock has gone to do bigger and better things since this debacle and his acting skills has greatly improved so I look forward to seeing more of the former wrestler.

-Michael Clark Duncan is in the movie as well as the token black guy and he's all right but the main focus of the movie is The Rock so even if he gave an Oscar worthy performance *which he didn't* then I don't think anyone would notice. Debney writes a pretty decent score but it's not exactly something that will garner any great attention. The action is pretty lame in the movie. It's pretty much the same crap we've seen before and even when they try to infuse it with something different it still makes you yawn. Maybe with more time they could have turned out something special, but this movie did come about pretty quickly so it's no shock to the system that it's not the most intriguing story in the world.

-It's a nice idea and the movie does have it great moments, but ultimately it falls flat due to it's predictable nature and not having a lackluster script.

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17 out of 30 people found the following comment 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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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Revives the lost art of the bad sword-and-sorcery epic, 12 August 2008

Author: James Hitchcock from Tunbridge Wells, England

Once upon a time there were a Mr & Mrs Rock who decided to name their son "The". Having a definite article for a Christian name, however, proved no drawback to young The, and he went on to become a well-known wrestler, as well as an occasional actor.

"The Scorpion King" is a spin-off from "The Mummy Returns", in which The played a relatively minor character called the Scorpion King. In the earlier film, however, this character was a villain, a tyrannical, power-crazed warlord; here he is a hero, a freedom fighter trying to overthrow a tyrannical, power-crazed warlord. The film does not have much in common with "The Mummy Returns"; it bears a much closer resemblance to the sort of sword-and-sorcery epics that the current Governor of California was making in the early eighties.

The film is supposedly set somewhere in the Middle East in the far-distant past, thousands of years before the Pyramids were built, although there are a number of anachronisms. The earliest Egyptian pyramids were built around 2,600 BC, but we see horsemen using stirrups, not invented until more than 2,000 years later. Gunpowder (said to be a secret formula from China) plays an important part in the plot; the Chinese did indeed invent gunpowder, but not until the time of the Tang dynasty, around 800 AD. There are characters with Greek names such as Philos and Cassandra, even though the supposed date of the film long antedates the rise of Greek culture.

The basic idea is that civilisation as we know it, or as we knew it several millennia BC, is being threatened by the evil tyrant Memnon, who is set on conquering the entire world. Memnon is assisted in his conquests by a powerful Sorcerer who can foretell the future. Mathayus, a professional assassin, is hired by Memnon's enemies to kill the Sorcerer, but then discovers that she is actually an attractive young woman, certainly far too attractive to kill. Mathayus decides that his best plan of action is to fall in love with her, get her to fall in love with him and enlist her help in the battle against Memnon. (Was Mathayus a distant ancestor of James Bond? He has made use of a similar plan of action on numerous occasions). You can easily work out the rest of the story from here.

The film is not quite as awful as some of the sword-and-sorcery films from the 1980s, but that is because of the advances in technology during the intervening period. The special effects are still fairly ropey, but they are not as hilariously bad as they were in something like "Red Sonja". The art of acting, however, has not advanced at all; The Rock is every bit as wooden as early-period Schwarzenegger. The beauteous Kelly Hu is rather better than the ghastly Brigitte Nielsen, who played the equivalent role in "Red Sonja", but then it would be difficult to be worse. Stephen Brand as Memnon is weak and Grant Heslov as the horse-thief Arpid who reluctantly becomes Mathayus's sidekick is simply annoying. Bernard Hill can be a very good actor, as he showed in "Lord of the Rings" and "Titanic", so it was a disappointment to see him in sorry trash like this.

The plot is no more than a succession of clichés and the dialogue is frequently ponderous and stilted. (Sample: "May the gods have pity on you, for my brother will not"). Notwithstanding the success of Peter Jackson's brilliant "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "The Scorpion King" proves that, even in the twenty-first century the art of making bad fantasy epics has not been lost. 3/10

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
better-than-expected Conanesque family fare, 25 November 2008

Author: OldAle1 from United States

*** This comment 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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5 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
The People's Chump, 24 October 2002

Author: Mike Colpitts (bushleaguer@comcast.net) from Boxborough, MA, USA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Spoiler Alert I guess the execs at Universal never saw No Hold Barred, Suburban Commando, Mr. Nanny, or any of the other massively painful movies from "entertainer" Hulk Hogan. Those movies should've put the final nail in the "wrestlers really can act, see?" coffin ... and then they should've dumped said coffin in the deepest part of the ocean imaginable. But, ohhhh noooo, they had to go and cast The Rock in The Mummy Returns and jump start the cycle anew. It would seem the expert decision makers at Universal were just as impressed with The Rock's delivery of "Harku-Mashenti" (or whatever it is he screams so well) as everyone else. Me, I think I was more impressed by the Super Nintendo worthy CGI effects that The Scorpion King took on at the end of the movie. But, alas, The Rock doesn't turn into a really awful CGI creature in The Scorpion King. Instead, he gets to say really "cool" lines like "Boo!" before blasting a guy through a wall and a mile into the desert with his bow and arrow (hey, I think I did that once). Obviously someone was listening to the movie going public when we were shouting "more cliches please!!" because this movie piles them on. We get the "really funny" guy that The Rock rescues from certain death (hence making you hate The Rock instantly for the rest of the movie). I'll tell ya, this guy had me in stitches! But, even better, I think anyway, was the heroic kid that The Rock gets attached to and then they go on wacky globe trotting adventures to save humanity. OK, so not really, but the kid is there. And, hey he wasn't annoying one bit ... OK, so that was a lie too. After that, we get the wholly original "crazy scientist guy who works for the bad guy but really hates him and is inventing something that will be used to defeat said bad guy by movie's end". That guy was great. Well, heck, the whole movie's one big cliche so I won't list them all. My favorite part in the movie is when The Rock kills himself and there was much rejoicing from the audience. No wait, another lie. I can't help myself. Actually the suicide scene was what I had to play in my head the whole time to keep myself from going insane. So, all in all, in what one might call a nut shell, here we go: The Rock sucks, he can't act, and he looks goofy all the time (about as bad ass as Urkel); The Scorpion King sucks, it's poorly directed, written, edited, scored, photographed, and acted ... heck, even the grips did a poor job!! If you're looking for 90 minutes of mindless entertainment, I suggest you try banging your head into various surfaces and see how long you can do it before passing out. If you want to kill your friends and loved ones with a power drill because you hate life then rent (or better yet, buy) this movie!!

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