Straight Outta Compton

Welcome back to “Black History Movie Month,” where I will be reviewing more current films that have come out in the past decade. Let’s get started with the 2015 biopic, “Straight Outta Compton.”

This instinctual hip-hop biopic showcasing NWA’s sudden rise to fame at times struggles to avoid falling into Hollywood cliché. Still, “Straight Outta Compton” proves as contagiously entertaining as it is educational thanks to F. Gary Fray’s splendidly surfaced and a catchy soundtrack that confirms rap as the protest music of its time. Despite gangster rap is now for legends, “Straight Outta Compton” reminds audiences that for some it was – and still is – a way of life. The beginning shows Eazy-E, played by Jason Mitchell, leaving out of the grilled window of a drug house, after a police military tank, without warning, crashes its way right through the front door.

In mid-eighties Compton, Los Angeles, there’s no initial stimulation to violence. Christine Jun said in her review, “This includes corrupt cops who don’t hesitate to seize and arrest any black men on the streets with impunity.” In this environment, the friendship of lyricist Ice Cube (real life son, O’Shea Jackson Jr.), aspiring DJ Andre (Corey Hawkins) – aka Dr. Dre – and neighborhood drug dealer Eric “Eazy-E” Wright ends with NWA and Ruthless Records. Jun mentioned, “Interested in more than just a fierce display of raw talent and braggadocio, rap becomes their way of voicing their anti-heroic reality with brutal honesty.” At first, a local club owner doesn’t want their hardcore material and all-black audiences remain somewhat doubtful.

These guys can’t even stand on the pavement without being immediately taken-down and insulted by cops. However, injustice only becomes feed for art, when NWA later becomes popular with their controversial F Tha Police. Jun noted, “In the wake of white fans bulldozing piles of their CDs in protest and the FBI’s sanctimonious threat of arrest, the members of NWA refuse to censor themselves on-stage in Detroit. A raging Ice Cube leads the chanting arena crowd in what amounts to civil dissent; except instead of a Black Power salute, he gives them the triumphant middle finger. Unsurprisingly, as soon as NWA transitions to commercial success, the swindling starts.” Their predicament with music industry hunters requires a different set of street intelligence, as white music manager Jerry Hill, played by Paul Giammati, graciously promises, “I can make you legit.”

Jun said, “The group’s growing internal division over unfair contracts is tempered by the spectacle of hoopties bouncing up and down Crenshaw Boulevard, hotel celebrations, and unapologetic bling. Despite the obvious bigotry, Eazy-E’s Wet N’ Wild Party – where female nonentities are more likely to appear topless than speak – makes same-era MTV Pool Party look incredibly tame by comparison. By the time footage of the Rodney King beating and 1992 LA riots rolls around, Straight Outta Compton cements itself foremost as a tale of solidarity:” Jackson and Hawkins provide lively, moving performances when it comes to Eazy-E’s premature death from AIDS. However, while NWA have long since gone mainstream for white and black audiences altogether, sadly, the African-American fight against police brutality remains very familiar today as a theme.

I remember when this movie was being released and Ice Cube and his son, O’Shea Jackson Jr., were going around promoting this film. I wasn’t familiar with NWA, but I think I might have seen their shirts and I know the memes that came out after this film was released. Check this film out on Max, but this is not a film to be seen in front of the entire family. Because of what is portrayed in this film, you should find it best to watch this alone without parents or little children present. Check it out because this is a powerful film, especially if you’re a fan of NWA.

Check in next week for the continuation of “Black History Movie Month.”

The Scorpion King: Book of Souls

Just when you thought the “Scorpion King” franchise was over, they release one more sequel, “Scorpion King: Book of Souls,” the fifth in the franchise released in 2018 (many thought everything was pretty much over after the first film).

Mathayus, the Scorpion King (Zach McGowan), partners with a warrior named Tala (Pearl Thusi) to find a legendary relic called The Book of Souls. They are told it will allow them to banish the evil warlord Nebserek, played by Peter Mensah, who has a demon sword that threatens civilization. However, Mathayus and his team wants to stand in his way before he can get more power.

David Steigman said in his review, “More or less a poor man’s Conan the Barbarian, Book of Souls has the potential to be an action-packed fantasy film.” Action scenes are done well and there are so many great visuals, thanks to cinematographer Hein de Vos, but the rest is very bad. Zack McGowan’s performance sucks. He’s physically right for the role, but his delivery is flat, making his character feel no more than boring. Overall, this is the nail in the coffin as a superfluous sequel.

In the end, this is one of those DTV films that you don’t really think about so much to get through the runtime. Most likely you will forget this, but if you’re a fan of the series, you should avoid every sequel at all cost.

As you have already guessed, this one wasn’t even worth the time to watch it. When I saw it on Amazon Prime, I can’t believe I wasted my time watching this vacuous film. Every single one of the sequels got worse and this one is no exception. Just don’t see any of the sequels if you did or didn’t like the first film.

We have now come to the end of “Scorpion King Month.” Sorry that each entry got worse, but this is one of those franchises that just sank deeper and deeper into horrendousness. Stay tuned next month for this year’s installment on “Black History Movie Month.” Sorry for the late posting. I completely forgot what day of the week it was.

Star Trek: Section 31

Tonight, on Paramount+, I saw “Star Trek: Section 31,” which came out five days ago, and I will let you know what I thought of this spin-off on a show that I never watched.

Dennis Harvey started his review by saying, “In the ever-expanding “Star Trek” universe — which next year enters its seventh earthly decade — there’s room for all kinds of celestial phenomena, including the occasional underwhelming dwarf star.” That status is claimed by “Star Trek: Section 31,” the franchise’s first film since “Beyond” nine years ago, and the first that was released to streaming. A spinoff for Michelle Yeoh’s character from “Star Trek: Discovery,” whose frequent director Olatunde Osunsanmi again is in the helm here, this rapidly distracting departure is too complicated and tonally shaky to leave a lasting feeling. Harvey said, “Given a fairly hostile initial fanbase reaction to the Jan. 24 release on Paramount+, it may also stray too far from hitherto-consistent core elements to warrant any follow-up.”

The still-agile former Hong Kong martial arts actress has definitely gained additional praise since her last Star Trek appearance, thanks to that Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” plus last year’s “Wicked.” Harvey said, “But despite her evident enthusiasm, Philippa Georgiou isn’t really an ideal primary focus — she’s a variable friend/foe/frenemy to the Federation whose slipperiness cedes the role of more standard heroic leader to charismatic Omari Hardwick’s Alok Sahar, though he never quite seizes the spotlight.”

Craig Sweeney’s screenplay hits a frequently cunning attitude to house this fraud protagonist, which weakens any deceit of seriousness elsewhere. What’s more, other characters so frequently end up having hidden identities, get pronounced dead early on and so forth that the nonstop twists feel silly, rather than clever or meaningful. While the story ends up with a face-off between lovers-turned-enemies – with life as we know it hanging on by a thread – that huge passion carries limited weight among too much narrative mess.

A prologue shows how as a young woman (Miku Martineau), Georgiou survived lethal competition to become the Terran Empire’s new empress, claiming that victory with evil acts toward loved ones including San (James Huang, later James Hiroyuki Liao). The story then jumps forward to a time after she lost that throne, and has already spent so much time as a jokey operative of covert Federation intelligence unit Section 31 on “Discovery.” (Harvey noted, “Never mind that this is only her “Mirror Universe” persona, as opposed to the same-named nice Star Fleet Captain killed off in that series’ 2017 pilot episode.”) Since then, she’s gone AWOL, having a new identity and judged of trafficking in illegal bio-weapons. With a new 31 crew under Alok’s command is sent to find her, then “neutralize the threat.”

Harvey noted, “She turns out to be currently occupied as hostess-owner to a sort of deluxe dive bar, her edge not so dulled that she can’t immediately recognize a half-dozen new guests as poorly disguised agents: Strongarm Zeph (Rob Kazinsky), whose bull-in-a-china-shop ways are heightened by a tank-like exoskeleton; Irish-accented Fuzz (Sven Ruygrok), who looks like a Vulcan but is really a Nanokin, or “intelligent microbe”; Quasi (Sam Richardson), who can morph into any physical form; initially blue-haired Garrett (Kacey Rohl), a humorless Star Fleet rules-enforcer; and chrome-domed Melle (Humberly Gonzalez), whose superpower is basically “hypnotic loveliness.” There’s also the eugenically “enhanced” human Alok, the sole member of this party who’s neither a middling one-joke idea or constantly bickering with the others.” Camaraderie has always been a big element in “Star Trek,” but it’s very absent from this capably played yet tiresome team.

Even when Georgiou decides to join the team rather than beat them, things go haywire in the Section’s attempt to grab a mysterious deadly weapon known as “the Godsend” from its visiting sales agent (Joe Pingue as Dad Noe). After a nightclub fight, it disappears. Everything comes as a surprise to Georgiou, who had originally ordered it made – and destroyed, she thought – back in her time as an unapologetic tyrant. Harvey said, “Now she’s just a semi-reformed “monster with regrets.””

Hoping to retrieve the deadly object (Harvey describes, “which resembles the “Hellraiser” puzzle box”) before someone activates it, she ends up stranded on a dead planet with the others in the film’s climax, which is mostly answering “Who’s the mole betraying our every move?” secrecy. Finally, they get a disabled garbage barge working and fly off into space, right behind them someone who not only has the Godsent, but a lifelong grudge to settle with Georgiou.

There’s a lot of action, mostly one-on-one, in the last third. However, it’s not particularly inspired, and the stakes feel more regularly forced than urgent. Harvey pointed out, “It’s also hard to grant climactic events the gravitas required when so much preceding progress has been snarky, occasionally smirky and comedic, minus real wit. There’s always been a healthy vein of humor to “Star Trek,” but here there’s no depth of character dynamics or anything else to ballast sheer flippancy. The whole drifts uneasily toward deliberate camp, all its story’s intended dramatic substance shunted toward flashbacks, explicatory dialogue and other clumsy devices that thwart any centering narrative impetus.”

Not that “Section 31” is tough to get through – it does have some moments here and there. The design contributions are up to standards, from visual effects to sets. Bartholomew Burcham contributes a huge editorial pace and Jeff Russo a satisfactorily inspiring score. Harvey mentioned, “But the big-deal factor that most “Trek” endeavors carry is missing amid characters we may not miss if they aren’t seen again, embroiled in adventures that feel at once over-complicated, one-dimensional and irrelevant.”

Harvey continued, “In the end, “Star Trek: Section 31” falls into an odd netherland between OK series episode and stand-alone feature, too big to pass as one thing, too frivolous to work as the other. It’s a watchable digression that floats off into viewer memory space, snapping its slender tether to anything else in this fabled sci-fi universe.” When Yeoh’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-star Jamie Lee Curtis makes a late cameo appearance in holograph form, giving the surviving characters their next assignment, you may think that they might set up future installments that may never come to fruition.

I say just give this film a pass. I didn’t really like it as there was way too much dialogue and slow moments for a “Star Trek” movie and not much action. I think that’s what the franchise is all about, but I don’t think anyone will really like this film. And this is coming from someone who never saw “Star Trek: Discovery.” Just wait for when JJ Abrams decide to make another one in his series or if they restart it again.

Thank you for joining in on this review tonight. Stay tuned this Friday for the finale of “Scorpion King Month.”

The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

Colin Jacobson started his review by saying, “When 2015’s The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power showed up on my door, I had two reactions. First I thought “There was a Scorpion King 2?” And then I thought “There was a Scorpion King 3?””

Jacobson continued, “Given that 2002’s Scorpion King - itself a spin-off from 2001’s Mummy Returns - didn’t do all that well at the box office, I think it makes sense that I feel surprised it churned out any sequels, much less a series that continues 12 years after the original’s release. But the world of direct-to-video projects opens up many “franchise” possibilities, as the combination of name value and low budgets makes these flicks profitable, I guess.”

In “The Scorpion King 4,” we meet up again with Mathayus, reprised by Victor Webster, known as “The Scorpion King.” After he steals a powerful urn, Mathayus finds himself betrayed by his partner, Drazen, played by Will Kemp.

King Zakour, played by Rutger Hauer, tells Mathayus that Drazen wasn’t just a thief – he was also a spy for the Norvania kingdom. While Mathayus wants revenge, Zakour orders him to ask for peace.

Mathayus travels on this journey unwillingly. He’s more of a murderer than a compromiser. Things take a turn for the from there. Drazen murders his father, King Yannick, played by Michael Biehn, and blames Mathayus for the crime. Along with the beautiful new ally Valina, played by Ellen Hollman, the Scorpion King goes to clear his name and make things right.

Jacobson admitted, “Although I didn’t care for the original Scorpion King, I didn’t rule out hopes that Quest would offer entertainment value. After all, I liked the first two Mummy flicks and since it comes from a related universe, I thought it might come with some basic fun and adventure.”

Unfortunately, there’s no fun, adventure, or any other type of entertainment, simple or otherwise. A cheap, sorry sequel, “The Scorpion King 4” feels like a novice attempt to make some money, that to being direct-to-video.

Jacobson said, “I barely know where to start. I’d like to find something good to say about Quest, but other than Hollman’s beauty – and the attractive appeal of supporting actors like Esme Bianco - I can’t locate anything positive to discuss here. If the film possesses any non-babe-related redeeming values, it hides them far beneath the surface.”

Instead, it gives everyone a movie that fails on every level. The story seems unconnected and illogical, without anything to make it fascinating. The story exists to motivate action and jokes. None of the characters or plot elements become even vaguely interesting.

Jacobson thinks, “Perhaps if the gags and/or action succeeded at a basic level, I wouldn’t mind the lack of a good story. Unfortunately, the comedy seems idiotic at best, and the action feels generic and bland. No excitement materializes from the set pieces; they pop up because we expect them to appear but they can’t deliver any fun.”

None of the actors do anything with the material. Hollman looks nice but overplays her part, and Webster gives a little more than an average impression of The Rock, the original person to play Mathayus.

“The Scorpion King 4” has a few minor actors like Hauer, Biehn, and Barry Bostwick. The first two look very wooden, like they feel embarrassed to be in this film, while Bostwick camps it up. Jacobson was nice to say, “I hope these guys made some decent paychecks.”

On top of that, there are poor effects and lackluster production values, and “The Scorpion King 4” ends up a complete failure. The movie doesn’t even have its own ending because it looks like it is copying “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” Jacobson ended his review by saying, “Even with low expectations, I find nothing worthwhile about the film.”

As you might have guessed, this film has sank the franchise to an unbelievable low. This film is so awful that it is not even worth watching. What’s sad is that famous YouTuber, Brandon Hardesty, is in here, and they give him such bad direction. You should see this channel, he was known for reenacting scenes from movies and he did a good job every time, even though he didn’t always did a perfect impression of the actor. I saw this film on Amazon Prime and I regret it. If you see this there or anywhere, don’t watch it because you will regret ever streaming this direct-to-video garbage.

Next week we will thankfully finish off “The Scorpion King Month” with the last sequel they did, which really killed off the franchise.

The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption

R.L. Shaffer started his review by admitting, “I liked The Scorpion King. It's not a masterpiece, but there's an old school B-movie charm to the picture. But then came The Scorpion King 2, a film so poorly made the villain at the end is basically an unfinished visual effect. I had little hope for The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption. But with direct-to-video franchises, two things can happen. Sometimes it takes a film or two to really get things going. But most of the time, each passing chapter is worse than the next. I held out a tiny shred of hope that Scorpion King 3 would be the former. Alas, it's not.”

Shaffer continued, “To be honest, I can't even follow this franchise anymore.” Mathayus has changed in every film, from WWE star Dwayne Johnson to two unknowns, Michael Copon and Victor Webster. The story doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be, never completely connecting the story to the prologue for The Scorpion King seen in “The Mummy Returns.” Shaffer said, “It doesn't help that several years pass between each entry, and it's not like I'm watching these films with any regularity. The last time I watched The Scorpion King was back when it hit Blu-ray, in 2008. Same with the second helping, which also hit Blu in 2008.”

“The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption,” released in 2012, is like a direct sequel to the first film, following what happened to that story very little. Here, Mathayus’ kingdom has fallen (?) and his love (which we are to think is Kelly Hu) has dies from a plague. He’s then hired by a king (Ron Perlman) to assassinate an evil king (Billy Zane) who wishes to use The Book of the Dead (the oldest cliché in movie history) to raise an evil army of professional fighters. Shaffer noted, “See, it kinda fits with The Mummy Returns, introducing the Book of the Dead, the subject of previous Mummy films. Except here, it looks like a group of high schoolers shot the film in their backyard.”

The rest of the movie has ear-bleeding dialogue, awful acting (Victor Webster seems to mess up every sentence he says), and dramatic action, much of which feels like more of a practice than the real thing. Shaffer noted, “Plus, there's a bunch of UFC/MMA stars in the film, tossed in to target a specific demographic that probably won't even bother to rent this junk. And lest we forget Billy Zane and Ron Perlman. Zane's career has stalled so it's no surprise he's slumming it here, but after coming off such a great film like Drive, this is a very big step down for Mr. Perlman. You know what? Let's just forget they were in this. I like both actors too much to talk about their performances here.”

Shaffer admitted, “The Scorpion King 3 represents one of the worst direct-to-video franchise sequels I've seen, and I've watched a great many direct-to-video films.” It’s horrible, badly made and boring, with no manipulative edge at all. That’s what you need with a film like this – some charge. Some feeling of energy. A reason to see the film. You don’t need a big budget to do that. You just need a little talent behind the scenes (a good producer or director) and a decent script. This film doesn’t have either one.

Shaffer admitted, “My bar was very low, and yet the film somehow found a way to sink beneath it. That's bad. I wasn't expecting The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption to be a brilliant piece of cinema, or even as "good" as the first one. But maybe a pulpy C-movie would have been cool? What we get in its place just isn't worth watching, I'm afraid. Rent the first Deathstalker instead. Now there's a low-budget film with some teeth.”

I first started this film when it was streaming on Netflix, but then it was made not available in my region. For a few years, I couldn’t find this anywhere until a few months back, it was available on Amazon Prime. I checked it out and it was a big mistake. As a direct-to-video sequel, you know this spells disaster. You have Selina Lo, MMA fighter and professional boxer Kevin ‘Kimbo Slice’ Ferguson, and professional wrestler Dave Bautista in here as the henchmen, Bostin Christopher as the disgusting partner Mathayus is stuck with, Temuera Morrison, and Krystal Vee as the new love interest. However, nobody saves this horrid DTV sequel. Never make the mistake of seeing this because you will find nothing savable in this poorly made sequel.

Next week we’re going to sink even deeper with how worse this franchise got in the continuation of “The Scorpion King Month.”

The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior

As a child, Mathayus (Pierre Marais) has to watch as the evil Sargon (Randy Courture) murdered his father (Peter Butler), but he wouldn’t forget what he had seen. He would enlist in the Black Scorpion training command, which let him perfect his skills to a mastery level. Now as an adult, Mathayus, now played by Michael Copon) returns to Sargon’s realm with the mission for vengeance. However, Sargon remembers him and offers him a very high role, as one of his personal bodyguards. However, the position is of the highest loyalty, which Mathayus refuses to give to Sargon. When he refuses to kill his own brother, played by Chase Agulhas, Mathayus watches Sargon once again murder one of his family members, but Mathayus manages to survive. Now Mathayus is on a journey to find a weapon that can overpower Sargon’s mystical defenses, but can even his desire for revenge lead him to such a weapon?

The first film managed to get a professional wrestler as their main lead, so for the sequel, the producers ended up casting an MMA fighter as their main lead. Yes, you could say that The Rock was bad in the original, but Randy Couture is “far” worse in this one. Couture is atrocious, not even fun to watch in a so bad it’s good way, instead his boring and wooden, unable to handle even this weak material. Couture’s painful appearance wasn’t enough because “The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior,” released in 2008, has a vacuous script, terrible visual effects, and an average cast. Fusion3600 said in their review, “don’t usually watch the clock even in the worst movies, but I was counting down the seconds until this one ended. Even in a popcorn franchise like The Mummy, The Scorpion King 2 flounders and to be honest, should be avoided at all costs.”

I would have to agree with them because this is a really bad sequel. What’s the purpose of seeing this? For the hot female lead (Karen David and Abbie Maybanks) in this…again? I remember a long time ago the entire franchise was on Netflix and I decided to check them out until they were taken down. However, I saw the second one before it was taken off and I regret it. This is a superfluous film and they should not have turned this into a franchise.

However, they didn’t learn because they made other sequels to the film. Next week we’re going to look at the next film in the sad continuation of “The Scorpion King Month.”

The Scorpion King

Happy New Year everyone. I have some ideas of what I will be reviewing this year, but let’s just focus one month at a time. To start off this year, I will be every movie in “The Scorpion King” franchise, starting with the first movie, released in 2002.

Where do you think you’re going with my horse? To Gomorrah. Nothing we can say will stop him. – Dialogue from the movie.

This is a wise move because the film is set “thousands of years before the Pyramids,” so property values in Gomorrah were a good value for anyone willing to buy and hold. Roger Ebert said in his review, “Here is a movie that embraces its goofiness like a Get Out of Jail Free card. The plot is recycled out of previous recycling jobs, the special effects are bad enough that you can grin at them, and the dialogue sounds like the pre-Pyramidal desert warriors are channeling a Fox sitcom (the hero refers to his camel as “my ride”).”

The film tars the famous wrestler, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (Vince McMahon takes a producer’s credit), and on the plot of this movie, he can definitely star in movies like this. Ebert noted, “This story takes place so long ago in prehistory that The Rock was a hero and had not yet turned into the villain of “The Mummy Returns” (2001), and we can clearly see his face and muscular physique–an improvement over the earlier film, in which his scenes mostly consisted of his face being attached to a scorpion so large it looked like a giant lobster. How gigantic was the lobster? It would take a buffalo to play the Turf.”

The story: An evil Scorpion King named Memnon (Steven Brand) uses the talents of a sorceress (Kelly Hu) to make his battle plans, and has defeated most of his enemies. Then we meet three Arkadians, professional murderers who have been “trained for generations in the deadly art,” which shows their training began even before they were born. The Arkadian leader Mathayus, played by The Rock, is a really strong man that early in the film he shoots a guy with an arrow and the force of the arrow sends the man crashing through a wall and flying through the air. (This would explain his warning, “Don’t touch the bow.”) Ebert said, “How The Rock morphs from this character into the “Mummy Returns” character is a mystery to me, and, I am sure, to him.” On his journey, Mathayus loses some friends (Branscombe Richmond and Esteban Cueto) and gets others, including a Nubian giant (the late Michael Clarke Duncan), a scientist who has invented gunpowder (Bernard Hill), a clever kid (Tutu Sweeney), and a wisecracking horse thief (Grant Heslov). The part where they vow to kill the Scorpion King is very impressive, as Mathayus chants, “As long as one of us still breathes, the sorcerer will die!” Ebert advised, “See if you can spot the logical loophole.”

Ebert said, “Mathayus and his team invade the desert stronghold of Memnon, where the sorceress, who comes from or perhaps is the first in a long line of James Bond heroines, sets eyes on him and wonders why she’s bothering with the scrawny king. Special effects send Mathayus and others catapulting into harems, falling from castle walls and narrowly missing death by fire, scorpion, poisonous cobra, swordplay, arrows, explosion and being buried up to the neck in the sand near colonies of fire ants. And that’s not even counting the Valley of the Death, which inspires the neo-Mametian dialogue: “No one goes to the Valley of the Death. That’s why it’s called the Valley of the Death.”” Of all the special effects in the movie, the most impressive are the ones that keep the chest of the many pretty maidens covered to within one centimeter of the PG-13 guidelines. Hu, a beautiful woman who looks as if she is trying to remember the goods things her agent informed would happen if she accepted this role, has especially clever long, flowing hair, which falls down over her chest instead of up over her head, even when she is falling from a waterfall.

Ebert admitted, “Did I enjoy this movie? Yeah, I did, although not quite enough to recommend it. Because it tries too hard to be hyper and not hard enough to be clever. It is what it is, though, and pretty good at it. Those who would dislike the movie are unlikely to attend it (does anybody go to see The Rock in “The Scorpion King” by accident?).” For the target audience, looking for a few laughs, martial arts, and things blowing up really good, it will be exactly what they expected. It has high energy, the action never stops, the dialogue knows it’s funny, and The Rock has the ability to play the role and the courage to keep a straight face. Ebert said, “I expect him to become a durable action star. There’s something about the way he eats those fire ants that lets you know he’s thinking, “If I ever escape from this predicament, I’m gonna come back here and fix me up a real mess of fire ants, instead of just chewing on a few at a time.””

I remember seeing this on free VOD a long time ago. I enjoyed it then, but I will understand if someone didn’t like it. For The Rock’s film debut as a protagonist, I think this was very entertaining, especially with how gorgeous Hu was throughout the movie. Check it out on Netflix, if you want, because I think people will enjoy this film,

I was surprised to find out some years back that there were sequels to the film when I believed the first one stood on its own and didn’t need sequels. Stay tuned to know what I thought of them in “The Scorpion King.”