The Scorpion King
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| The Scorpion King | |
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| Directed by | Chuck Russell |
| Produced by | Vince McMahon Stephen Sommers James Jacks Kevin Misher Sean Daniel |
| Written by | Screenplay: Stephen Sommers William Osborne David Hayter Story: Jonathan Hales Stephen Sommers |
| Starring | Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Kelly Hu Bernard Hill Steven Brand Michael Clarke Duncan Grant Heslov |
| Music by | John Debney |
| Cinematography | John R. Leonetti |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | United States: April 19, 2002 |
| Running time | 93 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $60 million |
| Gross revenue | Domestic: $91,047,077 Worldwide: $164,996,077 |
| Preceded by | The Mummy Returns |
| Followed by | The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian (prequel) |
| Official website | |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Scorpion King is a 2002 film starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Michael Clarke Duncan, Kelly Hu, Steven Brand, Ralf Moeller and Grant Heslov, and is directed by Chuck Russell. It is a spin-off prequel to The Mummy series, following the story of Mathayus the Scorpion King, the character featured in The Mummy Returns. The character and plot are to a large extent influenced by the fictional character Conan the Barbarian.
The events of The Scorpion King take place 5000 years before those in The Mummy Returns, and reveal Mathayus' origins and his rise to power as the Scorpion King. The name itself is a reference to a real king of the protodynastic period of Ancient Egyptian history, Scorpion II.
Tagline:
- Warrior. Legend. King.
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[edit] Plot
Mathayus, the last true Akkadian mercenary, is assigned to kill Memnon's sorcerer, whose prophetic powers allow Memnon to rule his empire with an iron fist. He sneaks into Memnon's camp and finds his way to the sorcerer's tent. However, his plans change when he discovers that Memnon's sorcerer is actually a beautiful sorceress called Cassandra. He shoots one of the guards and is about to kidnap her, when he is discovered and his brother is killed right in front of him. Just as he is about to be killed, Cassandra protests, saying it wouldn't be wise because the gods favor him and to kill him would bring misfortune. Mathayus ends up half-buried at the point where Memnon's men set off the fire ants. He manages to escape alongside a horse thief named Arpid. Now free again, Mathayus decides to avenge his brother and kill Memnon.
At Memnon's palace, Cassandra tells Memnon that his armies will conquer the west and that Queen Isis and her soldiers will scatter to the four winds. Memnon then gives orders to his men to have his soldiers prepare for the final campaign. Memnon then tells Cassandra that she has forgotten what life was like outside Gomorrah's walls and that he will bring a new order that will last for centuries. When Cassandra tells Memnon that rivers of blood will never bring peace, Memnon responds that they can bring obedience and that when he becomes the King of Legends, Cassandra will take her place beside him. Cassandra tells him that if she has sexual intercourse with him, she will lose her gift and Memnon will lose his advantage, but Memnon says that he will no longer need her gift then.
Mathayus gets into Gomorrah with the help of Arpid. With the help of the thief and a little boy, Mathayus sneaks into Memnon's castle. After evading the guards upon saving, he gets into Cassandra's bath house and kidnaps her upon going through its drain and Cassandra emerging from the fountain naked. Mathayus manages to wrap her up and get her into another outfit. He discovers he can use her as bait to catch Memnon. Later that night, Cassandra tries to escape only to be tripped by a rope that is tied from her sandal to Mathayus. During their struggle, Cassandra tells Mathayus that she's not planning on returning to Memnon since he had her since she was a child. Mathayus frees her, but warns her that as long as she remains with him, she will be protected against even more dangers.
The next day, in the Valley of the Dead, Mathayus spots a small group of Memnon's soldiers looking for them, led by Memnon's right-hand man, Thorak. Mathayus hides Arpid and Cassandra under a blanket, and rides off to challenge the soldiers, with a huge sandstorm as his army. Mathayus, with his leather mask, brings down scores of them until Thorak is apparently the only one left. After a brief struggle, Mathayus impales Thorak in the stomach, but Thorak uses his last moments to use his secret weapon: an arrow drenched in scorpion venom, which he uses to stab Mathayus in the leg before dying. The sandstorm passes, and Arpid and Cassandra find Mathayus half-dead from his wound. That night, Cassandra manages to heal him with her powers, despite the risk it poses to her own life. Thus the term Scorpion King. Cassandra believes he can save the people and free them from Memnon's tyranny.
Deeper in the desert, the trio catch up with Philos, Memnon's court magician, who briefly aided Mathayus during his time in Gomorrah and hid him from Thorak in his lab, and who has now abandoned Memnon to perfect his explosive powder in the desert. Overjoyed to see Cassandra safe, Philos joins forces with Mathayus.
As their journey continues, they meet up with Balthazar, the leader of Memnon's enemies, and the two join forces. During a celebration at Balthazar and his people's camp, Cassandra has a vision of Memnon destroying the people and killing Mathayus. After an intimate night with Mathayus, Cassandra is seen to have lost her powers of sight when she lost her virginity. Now powerless, Cassandra returns to Memnon to keep him from attacking the camp.
Mathayus and Balthazar go after her and a huge battle between Memnon and his armies and Mathayus and Balthazar and his people takes place. At one point in the battle, Mathayus gets shot by another arrow but miraculously recovers, and uses the same arrow to kill Memnon (throughout the film, Mathayus' Akkadian bow has been portrayed as releasing arrows faster and more powerfully, so Memnon mistimes the block as it is not a normal bow). The battle ends in victory for Balthazar and his people and Mathayus is crowned king with Cassandra by his side as queen, and it is revealed that in fact she has not lost her powers of sight, and that pretense was in fact employed by her to keep Memnon from taking advantage of her. She tells him that his rule will be peaceful and prosperous, but says like all the destiny of kingdoms, nothing lasts forever.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| The Rock | Mathayus |
| Steven Brand | Memnon |
| Michael Clarke Duncan | Balthazar |
| Kelly Hu | Cassandra |
| Bernard Hill | Philos |
| Grant Heslov | Arpid the Horse Thief |
| Ralf Moeller | Thorak |
[edit] Historical inaccuracies
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This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (September 2007) |
The plot is set in the pre-historical Middle East but events, people, places and circumstances are in sharp contradiction to actual history. The following is a brief summary of some gaps and errors:
- The actual King Scorpion is one of many Pre-Dynastic Egyptian Pharaohs who is credited as uniting upper and lower Egypt. The mysterious Scorpion, Narmer, Menes and Hor-Aha, may be the same person.
- In the beginning of the film, a narrator describes the events of the film occurring "before the time of the pyramids". Historically, most of the pyramids of Egypt were constructed during the Old Kingdom; however, a scene from The Mummy Returns depicted Mathayus leading an army against Thebes, which was the capital of Egypt during the New Kingdom, even though the movies had nothing to do with each other.
- Memnon is a Greek name, more than a thousand years before the Greeks reached the Mediterranean. It was used later, and erroneously, for the Pharaoh Amenhotep III.
- The inventor claims to have bought the recipe for "Chinese powder" or gun powder. Gun powder was in fact not invented until millenia after the film takes place.
- The bandits Mathayus kills at the beginning boast, "We have killed Sumerians, Babylonians, Mesopotamians, Assyrians, Mycenaeans... but we have never had the pleasure to kill an Akkadian". In reality, the Assyrians, Babylonians and Akkadians were all Semites; with the Sumerians, they were all Mesopotamian peoples. Also, the Mycenaean civilization existed in Greece roughly 1600 BCE. The movie is set "before the time of the pyramids", which were built roughly 2600 BC, a difference of at least 1000 years.
[edit] Soundtrack
| The Scorpion King | ||
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| Soundtrack by Various Artists | ||
| Released | March 26, 2002 | |
| Label | Universal | |
| Professional reviews | ||
[edit] Track listing
- "I Stand Alone" by Godsmack
- "Set It Off (Tweaker Remix)" by P.O.D.
- "Break You" by Drowning Pool
- "Streamline" by System of a Down
- "To Whom It May Concern" by Creed
- "Yanking Out My Heart" by Nickelback
- "Losing My Grip" by Hoobastank
- "Only the Strong" by Flaw
- "Iron Head" by Rob Zombie Feat. Ozzy Osbourne
- "My Life" by 12 Stones
- "Along the Way" by Mushroomhead
- "Breathless" by Lifer
- "Corrected" by Sevendust
- "Burn It Black" by Injected
- "27" by Breaking Point
- "Glow" by Coal Chamber
[edit] Prequel
A prequel is underway, and filming began on October 1, 2007.[1] The official title is "The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior" and it will be directed by Russell Mulcahy;[2] however, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson will not be returning to play the lead role, but will instead feature Michael Copon (Power Rangers Time Force) as a younger Mathayus.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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This article does not cite any references or sources. (February 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
[edit] External links
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