The Mummy was the first remake of the 1932 film of the same name starring Boris Karloff. Though debatable whether a good movie or not, it had its audience with its goofy tone, intentionally bad effects, and an over-the-top cheesy B-movie atmosphere. With that came a sequel, the Mummy Returns, that wasn’t as beloved and viewed as in a much more negative light, with one of the stand-out detestable moments was the horribly CG creature near the end of the movie known as the Scorpion King, played by Dwayne Johnson who was new to acting. Clearly that horrifying abomination needed a movie for himself to understand the brilliance of his inclusion, hence the 2002 film, The Scorpion King. Set years before any of these Mummy movies, three mercenaries are the last of their kind and are tasked with assassinating the evil ruler of the land, Memnon (played by Steven Brand). Of the three, only one called Mathayus (played by The Rock/ Dwayne Johnson) makes it out alive, leaving him the last of his kind. Along the way, he comes across an annoying comic relief named Arpid (played by Grant Heslov), the Sorceress who used to work for the villain (played by Kelly Hu) and a king of a hermit kingdom hidden away from the rest of the world called Balthazar (played by Michael Clarke Duncan). Together, they all decide to work together to take down the evil king and his accomplice, Takmet (played by Peter Facinelli). To go from likeably bad to just plain bad is not that difficult for these movies considering their history, but it’s another thing to be this cliched and predictable. The movie can’t be taken seriously because of the goofy tone and weak narrative, but it’s also too bland to get into the silly nature of it either. Thankfully the movie itself isn’t harmful as its mainly just a forgettable bad flick, but it’s a pointless add-on to an already shaky film franchise.

The story is every revenge plotline that’s ever been told in any form of media. Its kinda remarkable how little they try to make this movie something that is worth remembering. The film has almost no good introductions to characters, the story line is incredibly washed-up and tired, the connections back to the other movies are stupid and not that impactful in the grand scheme of things, the direction is as safe as it could be without any twists or turns, and it ends exactly as everyone would predict it would. The movie itself was half made by WWE studios, clearly one of the reasons the Rock is the main character, but there’s more to it than that. This movie is clearly in love with the Rock, with how much they love showing him off and just letting him do whatever he wants; while the story and writing clearly suffers because of how little attention there was put into them, since this movie is essentially The Rock’s hype movie, it did accomplish just that as it does paint him in at least a watchable light. One of the writers for the film along with William Osborne and even voice actor, David Hayter (that is definitely an odd turn of events) is Stephen Sommers, who also helped write the story for the Mummy movie, and while he is just a lit version of other crazy directors, he usually at least knows how to make something goofy. The film thankfully matches its dull story line with at least a goofier tone that doesn’t make it insufferable to watch, while nothing is funny or even smart, it’s not a bore fest at least. The director for this movie was Chuck Russell, who worked on films like Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, The Blob, Eraser, and arguably his most popular film, The Mask, so that vibe is definitely in his wheel house as well, but it just doesn’t feel like the script is strong enough to make any of these elements feel properly utilized or even fitting for the kind of movie its trying to present.

The characters are as flat as they come and about as interesting or thought out. They’re all bland and been done in various other movies of its type; the lone warrior who will get his revenge, the annoying comic relief that does nothing but bother people, the love interest who goes from cold hearted to puppy dog levels of goo goo in a matter of a few minutes, the evil villain whose evil just because, the inventor who somehow always makes gunpowder in these less-technologically advanced eras, and all the other weird characters that come along with it. Almost no thought was put into making them interesting as none of them have any background or anything unique outside of those obvious stereotypes. The hero is laughably forgettable despite the fact that he’s played by the Rock, the villain is a joke; no menace, no intrigue, no history, not even the right actor, he’s a complete mess. The love interest doesn’t do much of interest, the comic relief really does nothing of worth and just makes things annoying, the only one that was likeable to watch was Michael Clarke Duncan, but that just comes down to the presence and downright coolness of the actor himself, anything he’s in is at least enjoyable to watch . The movie feels like a cheap video game with rushed, brushed over and cliched the story and characters are, except the notion of the playing an adventure is taken away and instead replaced with just watching. While the actors are given no good material, it’s clear they’re trying their best with what they have. This was Dwayne Johnson first official movie, and for the first time, people can start to pick up what his shtick would be; he’s not somebody who can perform realistic gripping work, but he can be entertaining and has a decent understanding of how to work in a film without being laughed at unintentionally. Most of the other actors are perfectly fine, even if the two villains are way too white for this location.

Coming from other movies in a franchise with infamously bad effects, it would be expected that the effects for the film would be hilariously awful as well, but to the film’s credit there isn’t much CG in this movie at all, most of it is physical stuff. At a time when CG was booming and the new big thing, by making this movie just a spin off of a cheesy franchise (which would probably not even entice hard-core fans), it ironically forced the movie to not rely on CG and make everything that needs to be there really there. So, the locations are physical, the fights are actually pretty well choreographed, and the climax is actually pretty entertaining. Though it has no build-up and it has a predictable ending, the amount of effort put into the staging of each fight and how each fight does keep building until the final clash. There’s fire, snakes, explosions, swordplay, it does go all out and at least ends on a good note. Even if the movie doesn’t feel like a big budget movie, it did take $60 million dollars to create it, only earning back half of that in box office. Regardless some of it does show in the sets, the fights, and most of the costumes done by John Bloomfield, the same person who helped with Conan the Barbarian and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.  The writing is split between at least five people and each one has been part of a less than favorable product; one even being connected to the Star Wars prequels. That does give a reason as to why the writing for this movie is pretty forgettable; not evenly laughably bad, just standard forgettable lines. The score by John Debney is a bit over-dramatic at times, but for a silly movie the pronounced nature can be warranted a bit, and it still has a nice sound to the score.

The Scorpion King is a movie that didn’t need to happen; being a side-project to a group of movies that even then are questionably bad as films. Despite this, it has made a name for itself somehow, owning at least three follow-ups alongside its Mummy father franchise, but it’s incredibly hard to understand why something this bland and unrecognizable is a franchise. The story and characters are incredibly recycled and flat, the writing is forgettable, and the movie doesn’t bring anything to the table that would warrant its existence. There is a good fight scene every once and awhile, the actors are fine enough, and the tone allows things to be more light-hearted and harmlessly bad than painfully boring. When the titular movie itself can’t give a good reason why the Scorpion King is a SCORPION KING in the first place, it’s one that isn’t worth watching. Even for a Cheesy B-Movie, this leaves nothing but an inconvenient sting.