The Scorpion King

The Mummy without mummies is a daddy. This one is called The Rock. He's a wrestler turned superhero. The next Arnie?

The Scorpion King is a character who appeared in The Mummy Returns. He's built like The Incredible Hulk and has a fine set of white teeth. He carries an arsenal of knives on his person, a whacking great scimitar and a bow and arrows. As for clothes, he can't be bothered, unless they are protective in some way, like armour. He avoids small talk, thinks charm is girlie and only speaks of killing people. As a prospective candidate for who-would-you-take-to-a-desert-island, he comes last.

Without Brendan Foster and Rachel Weisz, a Mummy spin-off is a waste of sand. The script has less spice than a rat burger and The Rock's fighting skills are more in line with Steven Seagal, although he takes punishment and can whirl a blade with the best of them. His arch enemy, Memnon (Steven Brand), a Ghengis Khan wannabe, is half his size.

Mathayus (The Rock) is a professional assassin, from a tribe of assassins. He is paid to take out Memnon, who has been ethnically cleansing the known world, as well as his sorcerer, who has special powers over destiny. He slips into Memnon's camp at night, only to walk into a trap. He has been betrayed. The movie should end there. Memnon gloats over his prisoner and is about to slay him, when the sorcerer predicts that such an act would be bad karma.

The sorcerer (Kelly Hu) is a woman. What's more, she's beautiful and far more intelligent than anyone else, with one obvious weakness. She fancies Mathayus. Now that he's been spared and the movie can go on, there are no more surprises, unless you consider the appearance of Bernard Hill, as a mad scientist, unexpected.

Mathayus wants to kill Memnon. The sorcerer wants to save Mathayus. Memnon wants to kill everyone. Bernard Hill wants to blow things up with his new invention - fast forward to explosive finale.

Without battles, The Scorpion King would be a short. Fighting is all there is. And when you have a movie like this, you know that the showdown between the good guy and the bad guy is going to carry on for hours. It does. At one moment Memnon is flashing at Mathayus with flaming swords. Now, that's clever.

You want to take the big man aside and tell him to stick a snake down the skinny fella's drawers and run off with the girl before she wakes up to the fact that he's thick as a brick. Having to sit through hand-to-hand combat for what seems like a week, a camel ride into the sunset at the end comes as such a relief.