The Scorpion King is the prequel of sorts to The Mummy Returns. I say "of sorts" because while both movies have The Rock in them as the Scorpion King, that's about all they have in common, story wise. The Scorpion King is the tale of Mathayus, played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, one of the last of the Akkadians, assassins trained from birth to be efficient killing machines. He is hired by the few remaining rebels in the land to kill Cassandra, a sorceress who sees the outcome of battles, and advises the evil Memnon as to how to plan his strategies to be victorious in those battles.

Much like The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, The Scorpion King is pretty light on plot. The story seems to exist to move the film from one action scene to the next, with a few stops in between to let us get to know the characters. Unfortunately, the characters in The Scorpion King are paper-thin at best. The Rock does a decent enough job in the title role, he can certainly do the action scenes well, and his acting isn't horrible. Memnon is your stereotypical bad guy; he wants to take over the world, bring order to the people, crush his enemies, etc., etc. Cassandra is mainly eye candy; most of her scenes consist of her standing around in a bikini, looking beautiful. Michael Clarke Duncan does a good job as a barbarian leader, but has almost no screen time until the end of the movie.

The Scorpion King can be summed up with one word: typical. It's got your typical action hero, your typical villain, your typical rocking music to go with the fight scenes, and your typical bad action script. Much like The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, The Scorpion King is a decent, shut-off-your-brain-for-2-hours movie. It's nothing you will rush to see again, but it's entertaining enough to warrant a viewing.

- - Darken Rahl