Stale Popcorn

Did Russell Mulcahy abuse children? Is there any known cases of him violently attacking women or stealing from pensioners? I mean, I’ve googled the crap out of this guy but I still cannot work out how a guy with such an insane talent for visual cinema early on in his career (check out the very much under-rated Razorback, the cult masterpiece that is Highlander and the so-bad-that-it’s-awesome-but-still-has-the-shit-shot-right-out-of-it Ricochet with Denzel Washington!) can flush it down the toilet with music videos for the likes of Duran Duran and Billy Joel AND movies that could make you throw up in your mouth just listing them; Resident Evil: Extinction, While the Children Sleep, The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb, Mysterious Island, Tale of the Mummy, Silent Trigger, The Shadow, The Real McCoy and Highlander II: The Quickening to name but a few!

I mean Mulcahy is the dude that looked at the Highlander concept of “there can be only one” and saw ”franchise”. He’s also the fella that was fired by Stallone off of Rambo III. That’s right: Fired. From. Rambo. Three. Let’s not give the guy too much credit okay? But still, if you’d walked out of seeing something like Highlander or Razorback back in the early 80s and said “Yup, that guy is going to end up making a straight-to-DVD prequel to a reasonable prequel of a mediocre sequel in a few decades time!” I can pretty much guarantee that all of your early 80s-based friends would have said EXACTLY the same thing: “What the hell is a DVD?!”

You know where I’m going on this right? You don’t want me to waste too much time do you? I mean, come on, to try and convince you, dear reader, that The Scorpion King 2: Rise of the Warrior is not a bad, borderline awful, movie would be like trying to convince you that Paris Hilton isn’t a slut!

I know there’s people out there that dig the original (”original”?!?) Scorpion King movie with The Rock more then they do The Mummy Returns, but it always kind of floated me by if I’m honest. I finally caught up with it a few months back on ITV4 or something like that. I thought it was enjoyable but kind of empty. Well, it’s friggin’ Citizen Kane in comparison to this movie.

I could give a detailed list of criticisms as to why this movie is awful but, as I said earlier, I genuinely feel that I’d be insulting your intelligence by doing that. You know this movie is shite. I know it is shite. To hammer the point home would be a bit like seeing you driving your car down the street, stepping out in front of you to stop you and then offering to give you driving lessons!

But, instead, of intelligent, mature criticism (Why start now eh?) why don’t I just give you a brief TOP FIVE countdown as to what, at a base level, makes The Scorpion King 2: Rise of the Warrior an empty, vaccuous property - an empty, vaccuous straight-to-DVD property no less:

5. Ghosts, minotaurs, mutants, the living dead, swarms of bugs, witches, and a giant scorpion (obviously) all make appearances. But get this… they don’t just do a giant scorpion. They do a giant “invisible” scorpion! As in, they couldn’t even be bothered to consistently CGI a giant scorpion in post-production, so they just skirted around it. Sort of like “Hey, Trevor, a few of us are heading for a couple of beers after work. You coming?” “Sorry, Paul, I’ve got to get the effects work finished on this giant scorpion for the end of The Scorpion King 2!” “Can you not just fuck it off and come with us?” “Well, I guess I could just make it invisible, then I wouldn’t have to animate it?” “Sound’s like a plan! Come with us then!” Sorry buddy, but am I the only one that feels like pointing out that this is The Scorpion King 2. Not The Invisible Scorpion King 2. Cheeky lazy bastards!

4. The lead, as in the guy playing the younger version of The Rock’s character from The Scorpion King, is played by a man called Michael Copon. When I was a teenage we used to say to each other “Did you cop on with her?” or “Did you cop off with her?” The former meaning you’d secured a kiss from some girl you’d taken out. The latter meaning you’d had a kiss and a fumble. So, from the very start, I could not take the “hero” seriously because a) he was an atrocious actor and b) his name reminded me of kissing. Could you watch a straight-to-DVD action movie if the lead hero was played by an actor called ‘Cuthbert Snogginherfaceoff’?

3. The plot finds the “hero” gathering a band of unlikely companions, just like in The Scorpion King, including a so-friggin-gorgeous model-type (that - if you’re watching this with youngsters in the room you’ll deliberately spill something point at them and say “Did you do that?” before sending them to their room for “misbehaving”, just so you can be alone and ‘knock one out’) just like in The Scorpion King, and a “cowardly type” that makes supposedly funny sarcastic asides, just like in The Scorpion King. So why not just cut out the middle man and see the original? It might not have been much cop but there was some good production values and a decent enough lead performance from The Artist Formerly Known As The Rock.

2. It stars Randy Corture, as the “villain”, who I’m “reliably informed” is some UFC champion with a silly name. Is it this UFC championship that is stopping people from highlighting this stupid name to him? I’m not scared to. Seriously. That’s what is great about the anonymity of the internet. Plus Wyv’ is the only person with my address and he’s promised that as long as I don’t expose those photos of him fucking a small dog, then he won’t give out my personal details to the UFC champion with the stupid name when I tell him “Hey Randy, you look like a pug-dog that’s been injected with 10 years of steroids and your name sounds like the sort of guy that presents the ‘fashion police’ slots on the E! Channel. You can’t act and, whilst that hasn’t held other people back, at least those other people were able to land on their marks without looking off to the left of the camera to make sure they’ve done well!” Right, now somebody get me a big stick, a heavy duty alarm system and… some beer. Hell, if I’m going out getting punched to death by some dick called ”Randy” then I’m going out DRUNK!

1. It’s called The Scorpion King 2: Rise of the Warrior. But it’s a prequel. That makes no sense. Why did they stick the two in there? Why couldn’t they just leave it with a subheading. How can it be Part 2 if it’s a prequel. Lest we forget that this is a prequel to a prequel of a mediocre sequel. Goddamnit, what next? The Scorpion King 3: Watch The Scorpion King’s Dad Impregnate His Mum - The XXX Edition.

And you know the worst thing about all of this? On the very day that I watched this for review purposes, I received a letter from my local Water Board telling me I needed to conserve water due to a shortage in the area. Ironic huh? I’d be left feeling so dirty after watching this tripe and I couldn’t take the triple showers required to feel ‘clean’ again afterwards.

If this is all meant to be considered as “one big franchise” that runs into each other eventually (can’t see it myself) then at least The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor should feel reasonably proud of itself; this movie proves that you can make a worse entry into this franchise then Rob Cohen’s recent effort!