I can sum up this movie from the quote I heard an eight-year-old make as we left the theater. “I wasn’t scared Daddy. I knew The Rock wasn’t going to die because he was the lead.” Fucking beautiful. What the hell an eight-year-old was doing watching The Scorpion King is a question of parenting.
This movie rips off Indiana Jones, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer and, oddly enough (since Michael Clarke Duncan is in it), The Green Mile. It’s a generic tale of a ferocious warrior king named Memnon who can saw arrows up into dust a la Mel Brookes’ Robin Hood, played expertly by Steven Brand. He has this hottie little Asian sorceress, Kelly Hu AKA Cassandra (because she can see the future, get it? nudge nudge, wink wink) who is never fully clothed on but still manages not to show us anything. Together they beat the holy fuck out of every neighboring kingdom around them UNTIL that is, the hired assassin, the Acadian AKA The Rock decides it’s personal and he’s going to fuck with this mofo Memnon and steal his gorgeous bitch. Right. Got it? Good.
The original concept for this movie came from The Mummy Returns, in which The Rock makes his big screen debut as the Scorpion King, an evil character, who rises from the dead along with the armies of Anubus (jackal headed bad asses) and stomps his enemies to bits. The Scorpion King even burns down the library at Alexandria (So much for history). Not once is any of this acknowledged in The Scorpion King. Instead, The Rock, I mean, the Acadian AKA The Scorpion King, is a fucking larger than life hero who can kill hundreds of men per scene yet still have time to knock boots with fine ass sorcerer bitches. Unlike Conan, he doesn’t throw his woman into the fire and we don’t get to see anything during the sex. As Spike Lee would say, “Ain’t that a bitch”? You can show countless people beaten and tortured to death but God forbid you show some tits and ass. That’s what’s wrong with this fucking country, you fucking Puritan hypocrites. If every fifteen-year-old in America had access to a hooker instead of a gun they’d stop shooting up their high schools. Someone ought to tell Al and Tipper that.
Michael Clarke Duncan is fantastic. He rules the Nubian tribes, and sleeps with two women every night. He nearly kicks the crap out of The Rock but in the end, they become best buddies. No really!
Ralph Moeller is fantastic too. He just beats the crap out of people. What, you watch him for his acting ability? Come on.
My favorite scene of the movie though, comes when Memnon forces Cassandra to use her psychic powers to choose two out of six clay pots that don’t contain venomous cobra’s and stick her hands in them. She’s told him that she won’t be able to see into the future anymore if the two of them continue having sex. Of course, she’s gone off and fucked the Rock and Memnon knows it. We always know, ladies. So, she takes out a snake and stuffs it in Memnon’s face and then The Rock falls from a rope with a can of whoopass in his teeth and starts to churn Memnon like butter baby. That’s fun for the whole family.
Finally, this is a terrible movie, but it’s also terribly entertaining. Kudos to the producers for not throwing in any cheesy wrestling moves.
Ruthless Ratings
- Overall: 6
- Direction: 5
- Plot: 3
- The Rock: 5
- Gore: 7
Special, Non-Objective Ratings
- Numbers of times I thought I was watching Conan: 5
- Numbers of times I thought I was watching Indiana Jones: 3
- Numbers of times I thought of Branden Frasier’s faggy lips: 1
- Numbers of times I wished they would show Kelly Hu’s rack: 9
- Numbers of times I wanted to see WWF fighting action: 0