There's a rich tradition of Mummy movies in horror movie history, starting with--- okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit here.

In all seriousness, of the major movie monsters, the Mummy probably was featured in the fewest number of movie classics. You've got the all-time classic, the original Boris Karloff THE MUMMY (1932) directed with artistic superiority by Karl Freund, and you have the colorful Hammer remake in 1959 displaying the talents of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee at the top of their games, but after that, average at best. There's Lon Chaney lumbering around as Kharis, the slowest undead mummy on the planet in the Universal sequels of the 1940s, and the Hammer sequels of the 1960s and 70s weren't much better.

But you know what? For the most part, I loved these movies. Lon Chaney in his Kharis make-up lurking around those dark corners is purdy darn creepy. Sure, he's as fast as your great-grandmother with her walker, but if he gets his mold-covered hands on you, snap, baby, there goes your neck!

It just goes to show you, that a good movie monster can make even a sub par monster movie fun to watch, which brings us to THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR (2008), the third installment in the Stephen Sommers Mummy series, and the first in seven years [THE MUMMY (1999) and THE MUMMY RETURNS (2001)]. This movie is full of action and adventure, and while it does have a mummy, that dastardly Chinese dragon emperor, he's hardly a movie monster. He's much more of a cartoon villain, someone you'd find unmasked at the end of an old Scooby-Doo cartoon complaining, "if it wasn't for those meddling kids." As a result, you'd be hard pressed to find any horror element in THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR, and the movie suffers for it. This is one film that had it contained a monster, a true monster, mind you, not one in name only, it would have been a heck of a lot better.

The film opens with an effective prologue explaining the story of the evil Dragon Emperor (Jet Li). It's 50 B.C., and the emperor has conquered all of China. What's an evil emperor to do next? Why, take over the world, of course! The emperor smartly realizes that in order to do this, he needs more than one lifetime, and so he retains the services of a witch (Michelle Yeoh) to make him immortal. But being the bad guy that he is, he can't help himself, and he betrays the witch, and she in turn curses him and his army to gruesome deaths where they all melt in one of the movie's better scenes.

Jump ahead to 1946, and we find our mummy-hunting couple from the first two movies Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) and Evie O'Connell (Maria Bello, replacing Rachel Weisz) retired and living a bored life in their beautiful elegant mansion. Poor them.

Their boredom is short-lived, as they're soon joining their adult son Alex (Luke Ford) in China where they battle the baddies. Yes, young Alex has dropped out of college against his parents' wishes and has taken up archeology instead, following in his parents' footsteps. It is Alex who uncovers the tomb of the dragon emperor and his undead army. Where does this family get all this talent?

The dormant mummy is of course resurrected, and he takes up where he left off by bringing back his undead army. It's up to the dashing O'Connell family to save the day. Along the way, they receive help from Evie's brother Jonathan (John Hannah, reprising the role from the first two films, and he continues to receive the best lines in the films) and a mysterious woman warrior (Isabella Leong). Oh yeah, there are even some friendly yetis who get in on the action as they help our heroes.

There's action galore, so much of it that it all begins to look the same and no doubt you'll find yourself yawning. Before he's brought down and defeated, the emperor mummy does achieve full strength, and as a result, transforms into a--- dragon. The only things missing now are a few elves and trolls skipping about.

There are more battles and more fights, and as you would expect, a happy ending as our heroes defeat the flying mummy dragon.

If this all sounds a bit stupid and inane to you, you're dead on. The script by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar is about as deep as a pancake. But this is a summer movie, a roller coaster ride, it's not supposed to be deep. Granted, but roller coasters aren't tame either. This film is tame. For all its action, it's about as exciting as watching your buddy play a video game. Sure, it's fun, but it ain't quality fiction.

You know, just a little bit of intelligence sprinkled in here and there would have been most welcome. For instance, the ease with which young Alex makes his archeological discoveries is completely unbelievable. He'll look at an artifact for a split-second and know exactly what it is and what he's supposed to do with it. If it were that easy, to discover and then resurrect the mummy, why wasn't the feat accomplished years ago?

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR falls into the same trap that so many action/adventure films of today fall into, and that is, there is so much action without character development, that it all gets boring after a while. You've seen one battle, you've seen them all, unless of course the filmmakers do something special with them. Director Rob Cohen, taking over for Stephen Sommers who produced this one, doesn't do anything special. Oh, the film looks good, and the action sequences are all better than average, but nothing stands out to lift this film above others of its type.

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR also suffers from the curse of the sequel, in that the formula which worked so well in the first movie, 1999's THE MUMMY--- action plus horror plus comedy equals fun--- appears old and tired here. There's very little that occurs in this film that we haven't seen before. Like THE MUMMY RETURNS before it, this third installment fails to capture the magic of the first.

Brendan Fraser is certainly a likeable action hero, but his charm and comic lines simply don't carry the same weight they did in the first film of the series. Maria Bello, one of my favorite actresses today, is OK as Evie, but that's all. And that seems to be enough for this film, as if that's all the filmmakers were striving for here, to make a movie that was simply OK rather than very good.

Fraser and Bello don't really have a lot of chemistry together either. Luke Ford and Isabella Leong have more chemistry together, as the younger adventurous couple in the movie, but unfortunately, on his own, Ford's Alex O'Connell is rather boring. John Hannah is still funny as Evie's brother Jonathan, but even his routine shows signs of aging here. Speaking of aging, Brendan Fraser barely seems old enough in this movie to have a college-age son.

The biggest problem I have with THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR is that for a movie about a mummy, it severely lacks a horror element. What I liked about the first film in the series, THE MUMMY (1999), was that even though it was a rip-roaring adventure yarn a la Indiana Jones, it still had horror in it- the gruesome killings by the mummy as he gradually rejuvenates himself, including ripping out a man's eyes, the flesh eating bugs, and even Im-Ho-Tep himself was one creepy dude, as played by Arnold Vosloo.

No such luck here in THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR. There are hints of horror in the opening prologue, which actually was my favorite part of the movie, but that's it. A film that features friendly yetis and a giant dragon falls much more into the category of fairy tales rather than horror. The mummy himself here can hardly even be called a mummy. Again, he's better suited for a Scooby Doo cartoon.

It's hard to believe this movie was rated PG-13. In fact, my 10 year-old loved it, and I imagine other 10 year-olds will love it too. However, if you're much older than 10, say, an adult, my guess is you won't like this movie.

And while I thought the Chinese connection was creative and had potential, overall, the film doesn't take advantage of its exotic setting. The story could have taken place in any country.

More horror and less fantasy would have improved THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR greatly. As it stands, without a true horror element, this mummy mess melts away into nothingness like the greedy emperor mummy and his doomed legion of soldiers.

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