Films Out This Week

Aug 10 2008 Mickey Mcmonagle

MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON

EMPEROR (12A) *****

I have a confession to make - I've seen all the Mummy movies many times. My girlfriend is addicted to the silly, CGI-ridden tales.

Which means I have to sit through one of them once a fortnight or so.

The third flick - spin-off The Scorpion King - was the worst so far, which is why they have restored The Mummy title to this latest instalment. Fans will be delighted to hear it's more of the same - lashings of FX, very little plot and plenty of people running around.

Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) and wife Evelyn (Maria Bello) have retired but accept one last job in China. Their son Alex (Luke Ford) has discovered the mummy of Emperor Han (Jet Li), a nutter who vowed to rule the planet.

He is brought back to life and all hell breaks loose, sparking a battle between zombies and terracotta soldiers.

But ultimately this movie falls a bit flat. The previous films had a cheery charm about them that was hard to resist but it's curiously absent this time and the shift in focus to Alex - presumably to set him up as the star of future films - doesn't work.

DEATH DEFYING ACTS

(PG) *****

Set in Edinburgh in 1926, this strange film stars Catherine Zeta-Jones as Mary McGarvie, a fake psychic who cons people with her accomplice daughter Benji (rising star Saoirse Ronan). For example Benji swipes a man's watch, reads the inscription, digs out old library files then conjures up a message from his dead wife.

Guy Pearce's Houdini rolls into town and Mary sets out to prove her abilities by revealing his mother's last words. The pair try every trick in the book to find out about the escapologist and Mary seduces the married Houdini. But the chemistry is lacking and overall the film just fades away.

ELITE SQUAD(18) *****

If you're a fan of City Of God, you'll lap up this brilliant take on Brazilian favela life from the other perspective. The BOPE Squad are the Brazilian version of SWAT, tasked with clearing up the drug problems which plague the favelas. Of course that's like trying to rid Scotland of rain and midges.

Brutal tactics including torture and murder get results for chief Roberto Nascimento (Wagner Moura) so his bosses insist he finds and trains a replacement before he's allowed to quit.