The Scorpion King 2: Rise Of A Warrior (2008, USA)
I think this is the first time I’ve seen a sequel without having seen the first episode. To confuse things I read that the first Scorpion King movie is chronologically and thematically set after this one. If that’s not enough for confusion all both of these are considered offshoots of the Mummy series set in the present. As opposed to the Scorpion King movies that are set in the mythic past. None of this matters though, because The Scorpion King 2: Rise Of A Warrior is a pure adventure film with lots of fights and fantastic scenery. The scenery is fantastic in both meanings of the words: they are imaginary (or existing, but re-imagined) and are visually well designed.
The story is simple enough: a young lad witnesses his father’s death by an evil king and swears to avenge it, gets trained for six years to become a warrior, sets out on a journey with some faithful sidekicks to lay hands on the weapon that can kill the king, who has magic powers and delivers on the promise made to himself. I was thoroughly entertained but then I am easy to please. I liked the underworld scenes, the ancient styrofoam (or whatever materials they use now) towns, the minotaur’s labyrinth and mostly the clockwork design of the death machine in the center of an arena. The film had the look and feel of the Xena and Hercules (TV series from 1990’s), that I watched back then.
I was underwhelmed with the special effects though. Monsters were rendered with too cheap CGI here. Nevertheless it was a fun little movie to watch, when I was so tired I needed light entertainment.
