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 THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR
 Starring: Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, Luke Ford
 Directed by: Rob Cohen
 So let me get this right: Brendan Fraser plays father to a 20-something man, Maria Bello is now Rachel Weisz and action star Jet Li plays a terracotta warrior emperor who's been brought back from the dead -- but can't find a decent stunt sequence. Some movie franchises, it seems, are better left dead. An uneven, brain-addled exercise in tiresome self-reference filled with bad lines, boring special effects and some of the worst acting you'll see this side of daytime soaps, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor makes you feel sorry for the likes of Fraser and his co-stars Li, Bello and Michelle Yeoh.

Under the frenetic direction of Rob Cohen (Stealth, The Fast and the Furious), these bona fide talents are rendered useless, forced to deliver painful lines in a script without flow -- or what the movie might describe as a feng shui compass.

Yes, this Mummy goes to Asia. Set in the post-war years -- well after intrepid mummy-finder Rick O'Connell (Fraser) and his adventure-seeking wife Evelyn (Bello) have hung up their khakis in favour of a quiet life in the English countryside -- Tomb of the Dragon Emperor begins in Xi'an, the site of the famed terracotta warriors, life-size replicas of a massive army buried deep underground.

The opening sequence tells us a cruel emperor (Jet Li) was seeking the secret to everlasting life in order to carry out his plan of ruling all under heaven. Yet, when he enlists the help of a powerful witch (Michelle Yeoh) to make his dream of immortality come true, she pulls a fast one and casts an eternal curse instead of an everlasting spell.

Within moments, the emperor and his army are turned into clay. For 2,000 years, their tomb has been covered by the sands of time -- until a smart-aleck explorer named Alex O'Connell (Luke Ford) pries his way into the subterranean cache and finds the sleeping army.

Looking to prove himself to his mummy-mad parents, and be a real man, Alex brings the emperor's horse-drawn hearse to Shanghai where he and his new buddy Wilson (David Calder) decide to show the world their find.

Meanwhile, Alex's parents are also called to Shanghai at the request of the British government in order to return a valuable diamond to the Chinese people -- because looted treasure is always returned to its rightful heirs. Before you even have a chance to suspend disbelief, the emperor has been roused from his crusty slumber and asked to lead a rising modern army assembled by an evil tyrant looking for a return to dynastic times.

Only the O'Connells -- and two immortal witches and some Yetis -- can save the day, humanity and the world in general. Though the idea of reanimating the terracotta warriors has a lot going for it, especially when it comes to international box-office appeal, Alfred Gough's and Miles Millar's script has no defining elements. The plot is little more than a lump of clay shaped by the non-verbal hand of computer-generated effects without form or dramatic punch.