Blu-ray Review: The Scorpion King 2: Rise of the Warrior
Our second review doesn't get any nicer
This past week I played in a national softball tournament. It was my league's World Series. 4,000 or so athletes descended upon Seattle for five days of competition in six different divisions showcasing players of varying skill levels. Unfortunately, my time out on the field was cut incredibly short, my hamstring partially tearing during the fourth inning of our very first game left me both unbelievably ticked off as well as in an almost indescribable amount of pain.
What does this have to do with the new Blu-ray release of Universal Pictures' The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior? Nothing, really, other than the fact watching this movie left me in even more pain than tearing my hamstring did. This movie isn't just bad, it's a torture test, and anyone that can make it from start to finish without wanting to shoot themselves is far more forgiving and even-tempered than I.
The plot apparently takes place while future Akkadian mercenary Mathayus (newcomer Michael Copon) is a youngster, but what this movie has to do with any of the characters found in either the initial The Scorpion King or The Mummy Returns is well beyond me. As far as I can tell this kid isn't a warrior, he's a pouting petulant surfer-dude prone to scowling and acting like a total idiot, and watching him battle an evil King (UFC champion Randy Couture) is about as much fun as eating a handful of rusty nails.
Everyone in this thing (save maybe actor Simon Quarterman, who at least seems to be having a partial good time as a wisecracking Egyptian who leads Mathayus into the Underworld) isn't just bad, their downright terrible. Copon, Couture, Karen David, Tom Wu, Andreas Wisniewski and Natalie Becker hopefully got paid well because their work in this is so stunningly awful, so staggeringly hysterical, so beyond any rational description of ignominy, I can't help but wonder if they'll ever find work again.
There was a time in my life that I had a soft spot for director Russell Mulcahy. For all its faults, there is something about Highlander that always makes me exceptionally happy, while both Ricochet and The Shadow are total guilty pleasures full of moments I can't help but want to semi-champion. Heck, even his recent video game zombie sequel Resident Evil: Extinction showed some of the man's signature visual style and energy that had been lacking in his pictures for ages, and while I'll never claim it was good I'd be lying through my teeth if I didn't admit to having a great time watching it.
But after this one, the filmmaker has fallen so completely out of my good graces it would take a universally acclaimed masterpiece of epic status for him to probably get back into them again. This movie is so wooden, so cartoonishly constructed, so poorly photographed and so turgidly paced it almost feels like a student project. All I can really say is that I loathed almost every single second of it, and when it was over all I could do was take some aspirin and call it a night.
I didn't watch the special features. It just wasn't worth my time. Like most Universal hi-def releases, this one does admittedly look fantastic, and I'm sure all of the playful Blu-ray extras are perfectly fine and dandy. Just don't ask me about any of them, The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior so bad even a torn muscle seems magnificent in comparison.
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