It probably wouldn't surprise most of you that Ray and I are big fans of The Mummy movie series with Brendan Fraser. I have always had a weakness for funny, action movies, and you all know about Ray's obsession with all things ancient Egyptian.

A big part of me was surprised that Ray didn't want to rush and see this one in the movies, but I think it was mostly due to the fact that the setting shifted from Egypt to China. He is into China, but nothing near his interesting in Egypt. Well, that seemed to be a wise decision.

Familiar characters of Rick O'Connell, his librarian-turned-writer wife Evie (who is no longer being played by the original actress, Rachel Weisz), and her brother Jonathon are dragged back into the center of another mummy adventure. It all starts when Rick and Evie's son Alex, who has fled college to work as an archaeologist apprentice, uncovers the tomb of China's first emperor. He was cursed by a witch because he planned to take over the world and crush all sense of freedom. It probably didn't help that he killer her lover and stabbed her after he found out that they had started an affair while the emperor had set his sights on the witch herself.

The emperor, who was buried with an immense clay army, is brought to a Chinese museum, is awakened by some unscrupulous Chinese nationals hoping to bring their country back to its form imperial glory. From this point on, it is a race to prevent the emperor from reaching Shangri-La and finding a way to make him immortal.

This third adventure has a lot of the things that made the earlier movies great, but I think that is part of why it is not as enjoyable as the earlier films. It needs a little bit more than the formula to make it fresh and exciting. What I thought was particularly sad was that the seemingly natural interplay between the lead characters in the earlier films seemed to not quite come about. That made a lot of the humor fall flat.

In all honest, it is not a bad movie, it is just sort of so-so, which makes it a big disappointment for those who are fans of the O'Connell family adventures.