The Rock burst onto the scene in the late 90\'s in the WWF as a wrestler and later rose to stardom as one of the WWF Superstars. Now, just a couple years later and now he is an action star who first appeared in the Mummy 2. In the Mummy 2, he had one full line of dialogue in the first five minutes of the film and then dissapeared until the last twenty minutes of the film, but only in a poorly modeled CG representation. I won\'t ruin what it was, but it wasn\'t anywhere near the quality we have seen before.
Now enter The Scorpion King (TSK). The Rock is the hero, assassin, badass, smartass, lover, you name it. The Charisma he has on screen is amazing and rivals some of the best action stars reminding me somewhat of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian. The Rock is just great as an action star, but he needs to stick to just swinging his sword and getting the hot chick at the end because the Rock can\'t act. In fact, he doesn\'t have a shred of acting ability whatsoever. He may be able to be intense as an in-ring personality, but his performance in TSK is almost campy and far too underplayed. I wanted to get lost in his action scenes, but the sparse bit of dialogue throughout was just unberable to watch. The only time during a conversatiion scene in which I enjoyed his performance was when he showed us his thoughts through facial expressions rather then his speaking ability.
That gripe aside, that\'s about all I really need to say. The movie is a great popcorn flick with a decent and interesting story to go along with it. The action is top notch if a biton the campy side from time to time but it\'s completely intentional and totaly obvious to the audience that it doesn\'t come off as some camera trick to disguise the poor sections of the film. It\'s just great to go see with a bunch of friends.
I wish there was a bit more back story on his tribe of people, but alas, what you see is what you get. How this man ever became the evil Scorpion King depicted in The Mummy 2 I have no idea. He really does seem like a swell guy with a really swell girl (Kelly Hu). She did a decent job acting and a great job of prancing around half naked. The men in the theatre were beside themselves I\'m sure.
Well, I know this is a short review, but there\'s not much else to say. Poor acting, but forgiveable since this isn\'t a drama, great action with a decent plot, and of course; Kelly Hu. What more could a guy ask for?
Go see it for fun. It\'s at least worth a matinee.
