For the third time Brendan Fraser plays Rick O’Connell, an Indiana Jones knock-off with a knack for mummy mayhem. O’Connell’s wife Evelyn (Maria Bello) owes her publisher a third adventure novel to follow “The Mummy” and “The Mummy Returns,” the same titles of the 1999 and 2001 films in the film series. Adventure beckons and she escapes writer’s block on her Oxfordshire estate. The English government asks the couple to repatriate The Eye of Shanghai, a legendary gem, to China. That’s where their grown son (Luke Ford) is excavating the tomb of a Han emperor (Jet Li) cursed by a Sanskrit-chanting sorceress (Michelle Yeoh) in 50 B.C. Ten thousand terra-cotta encased warriors await resurrection. “I will crush any idea of freedom,” thunders their evil leader, as they battle revived corpses of slave laborers buried under the Great Wall. Rob Cohen (“The Fast and the Furious,” “xXx”) imports a spirited brainless aura to the action-friendly screenplay by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar, who earlier co-wrote 153 episodes of “Smallville.” Messages are irrelevant in this lark set in 1946 with no Mao in play. However, the automated crossbows installed in ancient crypts are historically accurate, more or less. Cohen, a Harvard anthro major, told the Archaeological Institute of America’s magazine that he’s practiced Buddhism for two decades. Yet, he preaches to his Mummy Blog Family: “the lesson I want you to master: the world is dense, competitive and usually aligned against you. SO WHAT?!!! You go out there and rip your goals out of its throat.” With John Hannah, Russell Wong, Liam Cunningham and Isabella Leong. 112m. Anamorphic 2.40 widescreen. (Bill Stamets)
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