On the spur of the moment a buddy and I went to see this movie, mainly to see if The Rock will be the next big action hero (we agree, he will) and to just gawk at the luscious Miss Hu. The story of The Scorpion King is a mishmash of mythical history althou one wonders how a Hawaiian beauty ended up in ancient Egypt. Or how an ancient Egyptian, even just one, even knew of the existence of China. Still we didn’t expect anything resembling veracity, so no big disappointment.
The Rock didn’t have a lot of dialog, which was a good decision, but he also didn’t rely too much on his trademark arched eyebrow either. Steven Brand, an English actor in his first major film role, was reasonably slimey smart and sort of Russell Crowe-ish as the bad guy, Michael Duncan Clarke was okay, albeit sporting weird facial markings, as the fighting buddy. Grant Heslov played his usual lovable, weak-willed, vaguely Arabic sidekick (like his True Lies role without the computers). Chuck Russell is workman-like as the director; his previous history is all over the place including an Ah-nuld film as well. The script by David Hayter (X-Men) was solid and smart.
Overall, much more enjoyable than expected.
BillSaysThis 
