There's a famous Hollywood story about a conversation between Dustin Hoffman and Sir Laurence Olivier when they were filming the movie Marathon Man back in the 1970s. Dustin Hoffman was/is a "method" actor, meaning (sort of) that he does in real life whatever his character does in the movie to help him "feel" the character. Sir Laurence Olivier was an "actor" actor, meaning he understood it was make believe and actually acted his scenes and acted them well. At one point during the movie (SPOILER) Dustin Hoffman's character doesn't sleep for something like 48 straight hours. That meant real life Dustin Hoffman stayed up for something like 48 straight hours before shooting. When Dustin showed up on set, disheveled, tired, and near useless, Sir Laurence, disgusted, told him, "Dear boy, it's called acting." Sir Laurence Olivier, sometimes called the greatest actor to ever live, thought actors should act. I wonder what he would have thought about Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior if he was still alive? He probably would have thought this: I wish I were dead, so I could spin in my grave. I wonder what Sir Laurence Olivier thinks now that he's dead. Probably nothing. I don't think the dead can think. It's sort of part of being dead.
That was a good paragraph. I don't really know what it means, but it was good. You know what isn't good? Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. Full disclosure: I, Jay!!!, was a professional wrestling fan. A HUGE professional wrestling fan. I loved every minute of Monday Night Raw. I was very passionate. If I didn't like the scripted outcome of a match, I would say, "These people don't know anything. Clearly the other combatant should have one the fake battle of supremacy because it's so important." I wanted them all to have nice leotards. One of my favorite wrestlers was the Rock. He was the best. He's still the best. He makes movies now. His movies are for kids and are sort of stupid but not bad. He's actually an okay actor. ANYWAYS: when Scorpion King 1: No Tagline Needed came out it starred the Rock, a professional wrestling god, in his first big-screen starring role. He had previously appeared in Mummy Returns as the Scorpion King…a selfish, evil king who sold his soul to some strange devil creature, so he could obtain unlimited power only to be taken down by Brendan Fraser thousands of years later. Classic yarn.
Of course the first Scorpion King movie forgets all the, "he's super evil," bit and has the Scorpion King fight valiantly for some cause with some people and end up marrying the cute Asian chick from Rush Hour 3. Good for him. It wasn't a bad movie. It was okay. It was nothing spectacular. It did not need a sequel. It did not need anything. When the final credits rolled a sufficient amount of Scorpion King stories had been told: 1.5.
Unless of course, you're Hollywood. Then it definitely needed a prequel that told the story about the Scorpion King as a boy when he fought Randy Couture, UFC fighter, and won, and flirted with some girl, and had inconsistent narration, and ugh, I don't know the plot. I think it was this: a young boy Scorpion King wasn't allowed to be in the army because his father said no, which made Randy Couture angry, so Randy Couture killed the father, which caused the boy King to train (with no montage) and return a fierce warrior, which got him exiled, which put him on a journey with a young girl warrior and a Greek person, and they eventually stole a sword from a witch, and then they returned home and killed Randy Couture who could shapeshift into a terrible CGI scorpion. The END.
There were an infinite number of problems with this movie. You might think that is mathematically impossible because there is a finite amount of time in the movie and thus there has to be a limited amount of mistakes. You would be thinking wrong. It's totally possible. Trust me. I was there.
If I focused on an infinite amount of problems this blog would never end. This would lead me to continue typing forever, until my fingers are typed into bloody little nubs, which would cause me to pass out on my computer, and that would be no good OR it would lead me to consistently post blog updates that you would be forever stuck reading, while I was forever stuck typing, which wouldn't be great, but at least we'd be in this together. I say this because I'm only going to point out the three worst things about this movie:
THE FIRST WORST THING IS DEFINITELY: the boy who played the Scorpion King. I might be overly harsh here, but this kid is the second worst actor I have ever seen. Evidently the director told him, "I don't want you to play the Scorpion King, I want you to play the Rock playing the Scorpion King." This caused the young boy to do the "People's Eyebrow," whenever he looked at anyone or anything. If he looked over at a boat, people's eyebrow. If he stared at his love interest in the movie, people's eyebrow. Always with the people's eyebrow this guy. Also, at some point an actor has to own the stage. He has to have presence. He has to make you feel like he's the center of attention. This kid did not do that. This kid made you wish that your eyes were filled with rupees and that your spinal cord was on fire. I would recommend staying away from everything this kid has ever been in ever.
THE SECOND WORST THING IS DEFINITELY: the director couldn't decide if he was directing an epic action movie set in ancient times or if he was directing a high school buddy comedy. The dialogue. Oh the dialogue! (Get it? Apocalypse Now kind of.) The three teenage age leads would flirt and call each other asses and it made no sense. When you set a revenge movie in an ancient dessert, you sort of build an expectation that people will talk normally or old-timey but definitely not hokily. Stupid.
THE THIRD WORST THING IS DEFINITELY: Randy Couture. I hope he doesn't talk much in the Expendables.
I would add a fourth thing, but I found this more amusing than anything else: About thirty minutes into the movie, a Greek storyteller starts tagging along with the Rock Jr and his bimbo action girl. He sometimes narrates what is going on because, you know, he's a storyteller. Other times his voice is actually narrating the movie itself as a real narrator. When he narrates as his character, he only knew what his character knew. When he narrates as the omniscient narrator, he knew everything. It is my hope all narration will be like this from now on. It makes it impossible to follow.
This movie hurt my soul and depleted my life meter. Someone please send me a power-up.
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