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THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR 1999's The Mummy was a barely passable Indiana Jones rip-off, while 2001's The Mummy Returns proved to be rather dismal. This one, though, is the worst of the lot. In the China of 2,000 years ago, a sorceress (Michelle Yeoh) places a curse on an evil emperor (Jet Li) who can now only be awoken by a drop of human blood; cut to 1946, where retired adventurer Rick O'Connell (series star Brendan Fraser) and his wife Evelyn (Maria Bello, replacing Rachel Weisz after the latter declared, "Screw this; I have an Oscar now!") mope around their English estate while son Alex (Luke Ford) is off digging up the emperor. Plot contrivances reunite all of them – plus Evelyn's brother Jonathan (returning stooge John Hannah) – in Shanghai, and from there, the gang is forced to fight the now-revived emperor. The sloppiness of the entire enterprise is immediately evident by the fact that the 27-year-old Ford looks nowhere near young enough to be playing the son of 39-year-old Fraser and 41-year-old Bello. From there, the movie only gets more absurd; for example, do the O'Connells really encounter abominable snowmen who, based on the employment of a field goal signal, must subscribe to DIRECTV's NFL Sunday Ticket package? And do scripters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar think that audiences will be impressed by dialogue that basically consists of variations on Rick yelping, "Well, here I am fighting mummies again!"? This manages to make even an epic battle between armies of the undead a dull undertaking. Clearly, here's a perfunctory franchise which needs to take a long-overdue dirt nap. *
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS As far as crude, rambling, shaggy-dog comedies go, this one's better than most of the modern-day crop. In a sense, this harkens back to the "buddy flicks" so rampant in the 1980s, odd-couple outings like 48 HRS. and Midnight Run (no wonder iconic '80s band Huey Lewis and the News was tapped to belt out the closing-credits title song). Here, the pair are process server Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) and drug dealer Saul Silver (James Franco); they're forced to take it on the lam after Dale witnesses a drug lord (Gary Cole) and a crooked cop (Rosie Perez) commit cold-blooded murder and the killers are able to trace the rare pot ("Pineapple Express") that Dale leaves at the crime scene back to the eternally fried Saul. Under the direction of N.C. School of the Arts grad and indie filmmaker David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls), Rogen again scores in his standard role as a disheveled slacker with a way with words, while Danny McBride, another N.C. School of the Arts alumni and star of the disappointing martial arts comedy The Foot Fist Way, offers broad laughs as a duplicitous drug dealer with seemingly more lives than a Looney Tunes character. Yet the biggest surprise is Franco: Generally the blandest of pretty boys, he succeeds in his change-of-pace role as a long-haired stoner. And it's Franco who's at the center of what will likely remain the summer's funniest sight gag. I won't spoil it here, but let's just say that viewers probably won't ever look at car chase clichés the same way again. ***
THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS 2 The 2005 screen version of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was based on the first novel in Ann Brashares' best-selling series, but this sequel reportedly combines the events from the remaining three books in the franchise. One reason is probably because the studio felt that audience interest wouldn't extend past a second installment, while another might be that the four ascending stars are now keeping busy with other projects. Besides, who wants to eventually see 30-something actresses still playing college-age kids? (It brings to mind the final film in the Porky's series, wherein high school boys were suddenly having to contend with receding hairlines.) Yet by ending it at number two, the filmmakers have insured that this series won't be subject to the laws of most franchises and grow shoddier as it creaks along. A solid follow-up to the solid original, this might feel a bit more scattershot than its predecessor, but its engaging characters, entertaining situations and emotional reach help keep it afloat. Set three summers later, it finds brainy Carmen (America Ferrera) heading to Vermont to work in theater (check out a funny Kyle MacLachlan as the pompous director), introspective Bridget (Blake Lively) traveling to Turkey for an archaeological dig, rebellious Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) remaining in New York to work on her film, and shy Lena (Alexis Bledel) finding romance at the Rhode Island School of Design. Problems are worked out in an orderly manner, tears are shed in sincere fashion, and everyone is reunited in sunny Greece, with nary a single ABBA-mangling peasant in sight. ***
