Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) may be no 007. His legacy may not quite measure up to that of Dr. Jones himself. And let's be honest, while charming, he just doesn't have quite the same sex-appeal as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Nonetheless, in the arena of mummy resurrection and defeat, he's our man. We liked him the first time around, we enjoyed him the second, and while a few things have changed, all of us who had fun watching him before will most likely enjoy him this time around as well.

The story of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is really quite familiar. Think this spring's Forbidden Kingdom (with a little less kung fu and a few more guns), an homage to Junior and Senior's quest for the Holy Grail, and a dash of the more recent father-son dynamics in Indy's latest trip to the big screen. The epic tale behind the O'Connell's newest adventure once again involves a mummy, this time the ancient Emperor Han (Jet Li), a tyrant who spent his life pillaging the continent for his own gains, and his "death" under a curse that has kept him and his army in Terra Cotta form for over 2,000 years. Although Rick and Evelyn O'Connell's son, Alex (Luke Ford), was only 10 years old the last time we saw him, now as a college dropout he is actually the one to unearth the entombed emperor and his army. But what neither he nor his parents know is that they have all been duped into a plot to awaken the emperor, free him from his curse, grant him the eternal life he has always sought, and return him to his rightful place of rule over all.

From there the story pretty much evolves as you would expect. Since the movie is set in China, there is a bit of kung fu fighting, as well as both the beautiful sorceress Zi Juan (Michelle Yeoh) and her equally enchanting daughter Lin (Isabella Leong). Clashes between the O'Connells and Han's army of mummies do involve a fair number of guns, explosions, and decapitations. And in the end, husband and wife, father and son, and young man and young woman are brought together by not only the adventures they share, but by the united efforts that yield their success.

Like many adventure tales before it, one of the central forces that drives The Mummy's story is the pursuit of eternal life. In the case of Emperor Han, it is about nothing more than gaining ultimate power. As the narrator tells us at the beginning of the movie, "He needed to defeat one last enemy, death itself." In doing so, he would not only prove himself superior to any other power out there, but would be able to exert his reign of dominance forever.

And then there's Zi Juan and her daughter. For them, eternal life is about protecting the world and preventing the emperor's return to power. At the same time, it is also about the remembrance of loss and the exacting of revenge. And as much as the Emperor and his army may appear to be the only ones imprisoned, we see that the sorceress and her daughter also live lives severely limited by what seems to be a never-ending mission, and weighed down by an emptiness which even their success will never fill.

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