Le Roi Scorpion 2 : Guerrier de légende

Well, with the amount of glorification that this movie received on TV previews, I had high expectations for it. The truth of the matter is though, it wasn't at all what I expected it to be. The acting was extensively wooden and bland. The action sequences were laughable and in some cases unbelievable. The story was unnecessary and it had nothing to do with the first installment. Character development was non-existent, and all-in-all, it was just a boring movie. So I'd suggest avoiding this one. The first Scorpian King was 100x better than this, and even that wasn't spectacular. If you must see it then I'd suggest renting it. To me, it was just a movie that seems like it should be on the Sci-fi channel.

I remember seeing the first Scorpion King in the theater and I LOVED it. It had pretty much everything I could expect in a spin-off from The Mummy- Great action, lots of witty humor and very beautiful Egyptian location, and THE ROCK! What a fantastic and underrated . Now I saw the trailer for this one and thought "Another one?". Sadly, it looks like I was right. *Another* one. A movie I could laugh, cry, and gawk at how bad it is. So I decided to rent it anyways, because, well, hey, it's a Scorpion King movie. And oh, I couldn't even make it all the way through. It's that bad... well, actually it's WORSE!!!!! The location is AWFUL and nothing like the other movie which had BEAUTIFUL scenery in Egypt, the actors seem to have gotten their acting talents from 4 year olds, the battle scenes are awful too- shaky camera, constant jump edits, it's like you're having a seizure the whole time. Oh and the dialog is mind-numbingly awful too. Overall, if you like mindless idiocy that's so-called "Cinema", be sure not to miss this stinker.

Every single criticism of this movie is pretty much correct. But I still had fun.

I hate defending a movie because you have to accept it "for what it is," but I'll make an exception for this fine and dandy B-movie, because you really do have to accept it for what it is. There's no possible way to enjoy it if you take it seriously... but there's also no reason to take it seriously! But has there ever really been a "good" serious film in this genre? Precious few, maybe none.

Somewhere early on I got the idea that the movie felt pretty much exactly like playing a D&D module, and that mental picture actually really worked for me -- it felt nostalgic. Once I had that in my head, it was easy to favorably compare the film to many other films that have tried the same thing and failed much (much) more horribly. I have turned off many other contenders. Notice I'm still not saying that this film was "good" -- just much less bad than a lot of films of the same general type. I'm saying it was good for a B movie.

It was good for a B movie especially because the acting and script were not gratingly horrible. (Okay, the wrestler-dude king was as stiff as a board, I can't deny that.) But the young fella and whatshercuteface were actually pretty good, and the scribe guy wasn't so horrible either. They seemed to be comfortable and having fun in their silly little roles, and they were actually responding to each other, not just reading the lines. That's way, way more than you can expect from most B movies.

So, seriously, don't take this film seriously. Of course it's not "good". If you want to watch this sort of thing, cut it some slack and have a good time. You could definitely do worse!

Even if you thought "Beastmaster" was great drama, you'll STILL think Scorpion King 2 is dreadful. The acting is surpassed in dreadfulness only by the dialog, although the muddy, on-the-cheap special effects also cannot be excluded from the race for the bottom.

We expect a sequel to be worse than the original film, and SK2 does nothing to dash our expectations -- even if it's a prequel. One finds it hard to imagine how the immensely boring and slightly soft hero played by Michael Copan ever could grow up to become "The Rock," whose Brooklynesque charm made the original "Scorpion King" worth watching.

Everything, yes, absolutely EVERYTHING in SK2 is derivative -- and NOTHING is done nearly as well as it's been done in previous sword and sorcery epics. In brief, skip it -- even if the only other choice at 3 A.M. is an infomercial for ceramic steak knives. SK2 is as bad as they come.

Don't take this film too seriously - the filmmakers obviously didn't. Although it's set in a period "long, long ago", most of the characters look, talk and act VERY contemporary. Equally contemporary is the use of "bullet time" in some of the fight scenes! I wouldn't count on it for a lesson in mythology, either (hmmm, and I thought the Minotaur was killed by Theseus!). And there are a few too many scenes where the characters are simply walking around, while we're waiting for something to happen. On the bright side, Russell Mulcahy is an experienced B-movie director, and the film delivers enough spectacle, with clear cinematography and some imaginative special effects (the best being the transportation from the labyrinth to Hades). The script is basically yet another "quest for vengeance" story, but it does have a nice double-twist at the end. Oh, and I hope we'll get to see more of the breathtakingly beautiful and exotic Karen David in the years to come. Wow, what a woman. Smart move to put her, and the also beautiful and exotic Natalie Becker, on the DVD cover - without those two, I would never have rented this film. (**1/2)