Movie Info
Movie Name: The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption
Studio: Universal Pictures
Genre(s): Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Action/Adventure
Release Date(s): January 17, 2012
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Mr. Perlman…I love you in better movies…
The kingdoms of Egypt are at war and Mathayus (Victor Webster) finds himself caught in the middle of the battle. Hired by King Talus (Billy Zane) to find Princess Silda (Krystal Vee) who has been kidnapped by a rebel leader named Cobra. When Mathayus finds Silda is Cobra, Cobra and Mathayus team with Silda to try to take down Talus who is using the Book of the Dead to take control of the country.
Directed by Roel Reine, The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption also went by the titles The Scorpion King 3: Book of the Dead and The Scorpion King 3: Rise of the Dead. The film is a straight-to-video follow-up to The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior from 2008 which was a prequel to the original Scorpion King of 2002.
I wonder how we can be totally bad-ass one moment and suck the next?
The original Scorpion King spun off The Mummy Returns and featured Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the title role. The sequel had Michael Copon as a younger Mathayus, and the film was worse than the original. This film was a bit better than the first film but still lacks direction.
The story moves better than The Scorpion King 2. There’s a lot more action and the addition of “super villains” summoned by the Book of the Dead added some fun to a rather flat series. The military power struggle with the kingdoms is nice (if not a bit confusing), and since all these films are prequels to The Mummy series and the Scorpion King’s first appearance in The Mummy Returns, it has to get him into a better position to end up as that horrible scorpion creature. I just wish the film had a bit more fun with itself.
Oh yeah, we’re going to have some fun tonight if you get my drift…
The cast of this film is better than the previous film. Webster is a better Scorpion King than Michael Copon, but the series still misses the fun the Rock brought to it. Krystal Vee is a nice foil to Webster and Billy Zane always tries to bring fun to his roles. I like the warriors summoned by the Book of the Dead played by ultimate fighter Kimbo Slice, Dave Batista, and Selina Lo…though they kind of go out like chumps. I wish the movie had just been about them going out and having adventures…it would have been better. Bringing in genre veteran Ron Perlman is also a bit odd since he played Mathayus’ father in the original film.
Give me some sugar, princess!
Visually, these films still look cheap. It appears like a poor version of sword and sorcery movies. Like the acting and story, it is a step up above the previous entry, but that still doesn’t help the movie which needs more of a spark to keep it moving…if it had been something better visually, maybe some of the other weaker aspects would have been forgivable.
The Scorpion King series hopefully ends with this entry. The series was never great and to have two weak sequels to a weak movie (which spun off a rather weak series) is amazing and goes to show that anything can get backing. You can find worse movie, but The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption doesn’t redeem much.
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