The Forbidden Kingdom

It's about time someone decided to put together Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

This is one of those "kid gets beat up, kid escapes into a fantasy world, kid returns to own world and beats up the bully" movies. And it's a good one, too. Jason (Michael Angarano) is obsessed with Kung Fu movies. He buys bootleg copies at a shop in Chinatown, where he also comes across a staff belonging to the Monkey King. Through a series of events, he ends up in Ancient China where he teams up with Lu Yan (Jackie Chan), Golden Sparrow (Yifei Liu) and the Silent Monk (Jet Li) in order to return the staff to The Monkey King (also Jet Li). This is an action-packed ride and well worth renting, even if you've already seen it. The fight between Chan and Li will go down as one of the great martial art movie fights, and both men have some great funny moments as the story progresses. They really looked like they were having fun.

If you read my previous posting about the third Mummy movie, you already know I am a big Jet Li fan, and he doesn't disappoint this time around either. And putting him in the mix with Jackie Chan...well, there is just no way this wasn't going to be good.

The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

The same day we saw The Dark Knight, we also saw The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. As a matter of fact, we saw this movie first and walked out wishing we had just skipped it. Disappointed? Yeah, you might say that.

I am a Jet Li fan. It's just amazing, watching him in his movies' fight scenes. He makes it look like a dance. So, when I saw how little he fought in this movie, that was a big disappointment. There was a fight scene with Brendan Fraser, but it just wasn't long enough to really show Li's prowess. Most of the Li fight scenes were actually done with the CGI creature he had become as the mummy.

The whole father/son relationship between Rick and Alex O'Connell (Brendan Fraser & Luke Ford) didn't fit at all. They just didn't connect. And as much as I like Maria Bello (Been a fan since her ER days.) there just wasn't any chemistry between her and Fraser either. I think it would have been a safer bet to write the character of Evelyn out as opposed to recasting it.

There were some good scenes in this movie. I loved the Yeti. They were pretty funny and helped to bring back some of the feeling of the original mummy movie. The scene where Fraser's character is hurt and they have to get him to the fountain....well, it was more than cliche. It was way over-done cliche. Reminded me too much of the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Indy's father is injured and they have to get the holy grail in order to heal him.

This isn't the worst movie I've ever seen, and I'm sure I'll see worse in the future. But, if you haven't seen this one yet, it's worth it to wait until it comes out on DVD.