Tag Archives: Stephen Sommers

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Whee! I love the Yeti designs. Scorpion King of the Far East, but still enjoyable…. I just can’t understand Rob Cohen…he doesn’t know when a franchise has stalled out (creatively) and keeps making movies with lots of explosions and violence regardless of which cast members want to come back, but then he writes the lyrics to the movie’s torch song which is beautiful and poignant. It really is a shame that Maria Bello had to step in for Rachel Weisz, but Bello does a very nice job. Weisz initially backed out due to scheduling conflicts (which the web is praying is due to her portraying Ava Lord in Sin City 2), but it could have been her pregnancy or dislike of the script…we’ll never know. It’s almost like Back to the Future where Elizabeth Shue replaced the original Jennifer, but she’s really a secondary character. Bello does an excellent job … Continue reading →

Van Helsing

Stephen Sommer’s latest foray into the Universal Horror archives left a lot of people upset. Not me. The characters were fun, I loved the excessive CGI, and the music was amazing. A definite “popcorn” flick, but that’s what good adventure films do. See, people are trying to re-classify the film as horror or action and grade it on those levels just so they can criticize it. But Van Helsing is a pulse-pounding, thrill-ride of an adventure which I loved. Now to the Q&A section. Q. Why does Mr. Hyde devolve into Dr. Jekyll after breaking the rose window of Notre Dame? For that matter, why does his arm devolve when it’s separated from his body? A. With no real background information on Sommers interpretation of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, we can only speculate as to what would make him change back. My guess is that Mr. Hyde, the murderous persona, was … Continue reading →