The Scorpion King Review
by Ronald O. Christian (ronc AT europa DOT com)June 17th, 2002
The Scorpion King
Dwayne "the rock" Johnson, Steven Brand, Kelly Hu, a few Playmates, and some other people I didn't recognize.
One star of five for Kelly Hu, zero stars otherwise.
Rather than gently simmer in the afternoon sun queueing up for Star Wars, we decided instead to fork over our hard earned pennies for last month's release, The Scorpion King. There were exactly five other people in the theater.
The theater was an icebox. Clearly, the air conditioning expected more bodies radiating heat than managed to straggle in. You could hang meat in there.
The Film: Well, I wasn't expecting Shakespeare, and I wasn't disappointed. What's amazing is how awful the first ten minutes of this film is. I spent the time thinking of what I'd say in a review. This could be the shortest review on record: Three words. "Man, that sucked".
Fortunately, the film loosens up a bit when Kelly Hu makes her first appearance. In fact, I soon noticed a pattern -- Scenes with Kelly Hu: good. Scenes without Kelly Hu: bad. In fact, I can narrow that down even further: Scenes with Kelly Hu and The Rock: Sort of OK. Scenes with Kelly Hu and anyone else (even the camel): Good. Scenes with Kelly Hu naked: Very very good. Scenes with The Rock talking: Very, very bad. Scenes with The Rock talking and Kelly Hu naked: Sort of OK.
Anyway, the film is paced as so: There are the aforementioned excruciating first ten minutes, where the director seems to be trying to drive as many people from the theater as possible. The survivors get to see Kelly Hu naked. Well, I mean, she actually *is* naked, but her long hair and some frustrating camera angles conspire to keep the film at PG-13.
Then there's about 20 minutes of WWF Smackdown (I am not kidding) and if you haven't clawed your eyes out, you get to see Kelly Hu naked again. I mean, she really *is* naked, but... yeah, like that...
And then there are a few fight scenes that actually aren't all that bad, and then, since that wasn't *too* vomit-inducing, you only get to see Kelly Hu in a couple of really brief costumes. Interspersed with this are scenes with several scantily-clad women who jump around and stab people. A few get skewered, if you're into that. I'm not.
Obviously the director knew exactly how to play the audience. He played us like an octopus having sex with bagpipes.
Anyway, there's some more fighting and stuff, and finally, as a reward for sitting there for a couple hours stinking of your own vomit and with blood coming out of your ears, you get to see a really nice scene of Kelly Hu posing on top of a wall in a costume they wouldn't allow on a Florida beach, very romantically lit, with the full moon behind her, only somewhat marred by the presence of that Rock person and a lot of noise coming out the speakers.
That's pretty much it, really, except my wife says that was some of the worse dialog she has ever heard in her life, and oh, other than the dialog, she might have found the Rock attractive except for the stretch marks all over him, only partially concealed with body makeup. She thought you'd like to know.
When the DVD drops into the $4.95 cut-out bins, I might pick it up, just to watch the parts with Kelly Hu's, um, parts... again. I think I can edit the film down to about eight minutes of watchable video and a few stills (so I don't have to listen to the dialog).
The presentation: Visually the print was fine, but the sound was screwed up in exactly the same fashion as several other films I've seen this year. A constant stutt--utt-uttering-ing in-n t-the-e sound-d tr-track-k that got very irritating. I think we shall try a different theater next time. Fortunately, this isn't really a film that requires close attention to the soundtrack. Quite the reverse, actually.
Next week, Star Wars. I'm not sure my guts can stand it.
Ron
http://roc85.home.attbi.com
"Protesters against the wearing of animal skins by humans unaccountably fail to throw paint over Hell's Angels."
-- Terry Pratchett
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