Further Sullying of a Franchise - Movies 4, 5, and 6

Okay. So unless you've been living under a rock somewhere, you have surely seen the at least one of the Mummy movies. To be honest, and much to the movie-buff side of me's chagrin, I really love these films. It probably has a lot more to do with the fact that these movies came out when I was a teenage girl who was madly in love with Brendan Fraser (loyalty since Encino Man, y'all) which somewhat shaped what adventure movies would mean to me, than them being exceptionally well made. For whatever reasons, I truly enjoy the first two movies of this series, so much so that I still watch them rather frequently. They are always the go-to movies if I just feel like watching something to entertain me but nothing around me is tickling my fancy. Fraser and Weisz have amazing chemistry, the plot is exciting, and the side characters are hilarious...not to mention the hot as hell-fire desert man from Deuce Bigelow fame.

So then there was news of the 3rd installment. At this point I was working toward my college degree, but I was just as thrilled as the first time I heard about it. Rejoicing all over the place. Then my little bubble got burst. Rachel Weisz would not be cast as Evy in this movie. My reaction to this abomination: 

Say it isn't so!!!

She was offered the role, for sure, but turned it down because of a bad script. I was really upset with this woman at first and then I saw the mistake, I mean movie, which she wisely chose not to touch with a 10 foot pole. What a piece of garbage. Not only did the plot seem completely contrived, it had hardly any continuity from the previous movies. How did Alex go from being a child around 10 to a person who looks to be 30 in the couple of years between these movies? Where did his British accent go and how did it turn into an American one while he was digging around in China? Who is the psychopath that thought replacing Weisz with Maria Bello would be in any way okay? What happened to Evy being Egyptian? For goodness sake, it seems like they didn't even try to pick someone who could hold up that part with any integrity. It just seems like they picked the first available actress who would do it for the cheapest (Maria Bello's career isn't exactly stellar so I'm sure it didn't take much at all to get her on board). Weisz was fiesty and captivating, where Bello is vanilla and honestly just seems lost in the movie. Its like Rob Cohen just wanted to crank out another film as quickly and cheaply as possible, regardless of what effect it would have on the integrity of the product he is pushing. I honestly think that if Fraser's career wasn't in such a slump he would have turned down the role as well (which I would have LOVED so we could just pick up from the 2nd movie when a director with an actual sense of what is good could take on the franchise). But no... now we are stuck trying to work around that disaster of a movie. 

What is really sad is that they already have plans for the Mummy 4: Rise of the Aztecs, with 5 and 6 waiting in the wings. Maria Bello (having nothing better to do) has already signed on for all of them. Its a tragedy. Now we all get to sit by and watch Rob Cohen run this series into the ground, taking whats left of poor Fraser's career with it. This franchise could have been really great. It would have been the Indiana Jones of my generation...now it will never live up to the potential it once had. Fraser is the only thing left breathing life into these movies, and he is the one who is going to shoulder the blame if the rest of them bomb as badly as the third because he pretty much IS the franchise....its terrible.

Someone stop this man from making anymore movies! I mean, he even supports making a xXx sequel...

The only way it could be saved is this: 

Someone take the reigns from Rob Cohen's hands. Basically pretend like the 3rd movie didn't happen, bring back Weisz, find someone (much younger and better at acting!) who could actually be Rick and Evy's son, and for the love of all things holy stop making Alex the focus of the movie. Rick is the best character. There haven't even been enough movies to start "passing the torch" to his kid yet, geez. I mean c'mon Rob Cohen, couldn't you have tried just a little bit? This movie series is going to crumble in your fingers, Rob, because you decided it was better to lose one of the MAIN TWO CHARACTERS who CARRIED the movies because you were too cheap and lazy to find better writers, and wanted to make a quicker buck than have a high quality movie which could endure for years to come.

I won't be back to watch any more Mummy movies....after that third one I doubt I'll even bother renting them. I'm happy without wasting a whole two hours of my life. I'll just have to keep watching the first two and hoping that some day, years down the line, some director will realize how much of a mistake this was and re-do the series. Here's to hoping.

WHERE DID STEPHEN SOMMERS GO?

Edit: Apparently movie execs felt the same way about Cohen's handling of the movie and have brought back Stephen Sommers (who co-wrote and directed one and two) to direct the fourth installment. However, he is going to have to handle this skillfully to have it make sense with that third one mucking everything up...and I'm still not sure if it'll be enough to make up for Maria Bello as Evy and the whole weird Alex issue...but I guess we'll see. At least with him back in charge there is a much higher chance of me wanting to watch future movies at some point (but without Rachel they really just aren't worth going to see in theaters).  

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