There's something questionable about a spin-off movie like The Scorpion King that comes out less than a year after the film that spawned the idea. 2001's The Mummy Returns inspired the fairly insignificant title character, and the fact that he was played by the Rock, one of pro wrestling's biggest stars, is easily the only reason an entire movie about his character was even considered for production. It is no shock, then, that The Scorpion King is almost as completely ridiculous as the idea to make such a foolish motion picture.

      Stephen Sommers, who wrote and directed both The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, decided to chip in his two cents here, which is to be expected since he originally created the Scorpion King character. What comes as a surprise, though, is that The Scorpion King has virtually no resemblance or relation to the source material whatsoever. There's hardly the supernatural overtone which made both Mummy movies as fun as they were. And the hints of adventure in this film seem like mere child's play compared to what Sommers did in the first two movies (which, admittedly, were popcorn bucket action movies). But at least they made sense and were fun to watch.

      The target audience of The Scorpion King is clearly that group of wrestling fans that can name every wrestler the Rock has faced and what moves he used, so perhaps an intelligent adventure film is not exactly what director Chuck Russell and company were trying for. Fittingly, the main plotline develops in less than ten minutes, allowing the mindless action to begin immediately. In fact, it might take you just as long to read the following plot summary as it took for the movie to establish its story.

      Start your watches: Mathayus (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) is one of the only Arkadians left alive in the ancient world and is one of the most skilled warriors in the land. Memron (Steven Brand), an extremely powerful and ruthless ruler, threatens to take over everything and no one can stop him and his invincible army. So a small band of rebels hire Mathayus to assassinate Memron in hopes of being able to restore peace. Add the barest of necessities for an action movie -- a beautiful woman, a comedic sidekick, and a plethora of fight scenes against dozens of look-alike thugs -- and you've got your run-of-the-mill brainless action-adventure pic.

      Though the movie seems like a near pointless 80-minute display of cheesy action (some of it even looking more unrealistic than WWF wrestling), it hints at quality entertainment when it mimics other action films, like the Indiana Jones series and Gladiator. The fact that it doesn't even feel like its Mummy predecessors, though, is where director Russell (Bless the Child) goes wrong. It also doesn't help when he adds rock guitar riffs into the music during action scenes, either. Maybe executive producer and WWF owner Vince McMahon had more influence than he should have on the creative side.

      But perhaps the most painful thing about The Scorpion King is its pitiful dialogue. Certainly, this movie wasn't meant to be a Lawrence of Arabia or Spartacus, and maybe the fact that it doesn't even come close to taking itself seriously with the words the characters speak means it shouldn't be totally held against the writers. Then again, when you have lines like, "Boo!" (The Rock's first line as he crashes into the opening execution scene) and "As long as one of us still breathes, the sorcerer will die!" (a rousing sentence that has a rather obvious logical problem), it's hard to call this a good movie even if it was trying to poke fun at itself.

      Admittedly, little that is said here will change anyone's minds about seeing The Scorpion King, because either you want to see it or agree it looks awful. Really, who goes to see a movie starring the Rock without knowing what they're getting into?

Let's hope not many.

Andy Zientek, 2002