5,000 years ago an evil tyrant was about to sweep all the lands of Egypt under his cruel and brutal thumb. With the aid of a sorceress he is always victorious in battle and is a legendary swordsman as well. But a small group of people who oppose his rule have hired the last of the Acadians to kill the sorceress and make the tyrant vulnerable once more. The greatest of these Acadians is Mathayus who is a great warrior and swordsman himself. But along their plans go askew and Mathayus loses his brother and wishes nothing more than to see vengeance against the emperor who killed him right before his eyes. This quest leads Mathayus to the city of Gomorrah, which the emperor calls his home. In an effort to draw him out he kidnaps the sorceress and leads them into the desert and the home of the now almost extinct Acadians aptly named the valley of the dead. There he will he face the evil henchman of the emperor and try and sort his feelings he now finds himself having for the sorceress all the while trying to rid the world of a tyrant and save the day. But along the journey will not be easy and he will find himself consorting with horse thieves and men who would like noting better than to see him dead.

A prequel to last summers action flick The Mummy Returns where the Rock starred in a brief role as the Scorpion King. I had a hard time deciding whether or not they were aiming for the level of campiness they achieved or whether they just absolutely mauled this movie not knowing what they were doing. I think it was the later as this movie borderlines being a horribly bad movie and is only saved by the constant action of the movie. This is Conan the barbarian meets the mummy and I think The Rock makes Arnold look like a candidate for an Oscar. Even the action seemed to falter at times as they tried to maintain a PG-13 rating and they seemed to like to mix endless amounts of WWF with a sword type action with actual fighting. The movie maybe could have been a good camp movie had they hired a better director like Raimi from the Evil Dead series. They also seemed to be trying to wrangle in the teenager crowd by showing a lot of skin but never showing anything that would threaten their PG-13 rating. The movie was a huge disappointment as both o fits Mummy predecessors were far better movies. The sad thing is the movie had the potential for being a much better movie but it wasn't. I like popcorn flicks but there are many more that are better then this one. Go see it for the action but don't be expect to be overly entertained.
2.5 stars out of 5