Movies You Aught Not Watch: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Movies You Aught Not Watch is a weekly, alphabetical look back at the 52 worst films of 2000-2009.

"The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" Rated PG-13 2008

Calling Jet Li Emperor in this 2008 sequel is accurate. His character has no credited last name. Just Emperor. Not even Dragon Emperor.

Were it not for continuity from the other modern “Mummy” movies, the returning characters could be Hero, Heroine, Son and Uncle. A new character could be Dude With Arms Ripped Off in 50 B.C. Whose Skeleton Has Arms in 1947 A.D.

Brendan Fraser’s admirable spark couldn’t save this loud, soulless and aggressively unintelligent second sequel. While questioning creature-feature logic is usually a buzzkill, that proved the only way to keep the brain from liquefying into the same diarrheic goop as Li’s body in the prologue.

He’s the mummy resurrected by Alex O’Connell — the charming kid from “The Mummy Returns” who grew into a cross between Hayden Christensen, Richard Grieco and a popped-collar Delta Chi you want to sock in the jaw. Of course, dad Rick (Fraser) and mom Evie (Maria Bello, replacing Rachel Weisz) accompany their son to Shangri-La (which resembles plugged-in “moving” Chinese-buffet art).

So does Uncle Jonathan (John Hannah) whose utters, “You guys are like mummy magnets!,” “I hate mummies!” and “Die, you mummy bastards! Die!” Jonathan also supremely defies gravity and physics — dropping a bomb from a plane onto a car not with a targeting system but with HIS BARE HANDS.

Macs are sold with better software that allows you to render your own CGI armies and soaring arrows. Here’s a title for the improved movie you could make: “Gloom of the Dragging Emperor.”