Movie Info
Movie Name: The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior
Studio: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Genre(s): Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Action/Adventure/B-Movie
Release Date(s): August 19, 2008
MPAA Rating: PG-13
I wish he had just killed his brother, joined the king, and ended this movie…
Mathayus (Michael Copon) trains with the Black Scorpions and returns to avenge his father’s death at the hands of Sargon (Randy Couture). Mathayus discovers that Sargon is protected by magic and must journey into Underworld to claim the Sword of Damocles to defeat him. Teamed with his friends Layla (Karen David), Ari (Simon Quarterman), and Fong (Tom Wu), Mathayus must stop Sargon.
Directed by Russell Mulcahy, The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior is the prequel to The Scorpion King. The film was a straight-to-DVD and released to mostly negative reviews.
The original Scorpion King starred the Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) in a prequel to the film The Mummy Returns. Here, the prequel to the prequel doesn’t star the Rock and was straight-to-DVD…this is generally a bad sign.
At least there could have been some nudity…yep, this is hell…
The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior is dull…very dull. The adventure of the Mummy films and the first Scorpion King were already kind of dull. The movie here just plods on and on. I do kind of like the adventure into the Underworld which is a small brief blip in an otherwise slow plot…plus the film ends with a generic “Mathayus moved on” ending to try to tie in to the first Scorpion King film.
Without the Rock, the movie loses any semblance of interesting actors. The “stars” all seem rather generic and the acting is very stodgy. This feels like a low budget sword-and-sorcery level actors and when this is combined with the horrible dialogue of the script, the actors really struggle.
Oh cool! A giant scorpion! Nope, it’s invisible…
With no script, no actors, and no budget, the movie also looks horrible. The Mummy Returns and The Scorpion King also had some questionable effects (the scorpion Rock in The Mummy Returns was abominable), and this movie looks like the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or Xena: Warrior Princess…and that isn’t a compliment.
The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior is poor sword and sorcery. It is a nice testament to the classic bad ’80s Conan rip-offs that bad movies can still get made. The Scorpion King however wasn’t finished with this horrible entry, The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior was followed by The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption in 2012 which had another Mathayus in Victor Webster.
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