The Scorpion King is a 2002 American action film directed by Chuck Russell, starring Dwayne
"The Rock" Johnson, Kelly Hu, Grant Heslov, and Michael Clarke Duncan.
It is a prequel/spin-off to The Mummy series, and follows the story of Mathayus the Scorpion
King, the character featured in The Mummy Returns.
The events of The Scorpion King take place 5,000 years before those in The Mummy and
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.
Plot "Before the time of the pyramids," a horde
from the East invades the ancient world, led by the ruthless Memnon, who by their law,
is king for being their greatest warrior.
His many victories come from the help of a sorcerer who predicts the outcomes of battles,
leaving only a few free tribes to oppose him.
Mathayus, his half-brother Jesup, and friend Rama, the only three true remaining Akkadians,
are hired by King Pheron of the last free tribes to kill Memnon's sorcerer for twenty
blood rubies, upsetting Pheron's son Takmet, as it is the last of their treasury.
The Akkadians manage to sneak into Memnon's camp, but are ambushed by Memnon's guards,
having been tipped off by Takmet, who killed Pheron and defected to Memnon's side.
Jesup and Rama are hit by arrows, but Mathayus manages to sneak into the sorcerer's tent,
where he sees that the visionary is actually a sorceress, Cassandra.
Mathayus is then captured and meets Memnon himself, who brutally executes Jesup in front
of him, and is about to kill Mathayus too.
Cassandra, however, tells Memnon that the gods wish Mathayus to survive the night, and
to defy them would incur their wrath.
Memnon has Mathayus buried to his neck in the desert to be devoured by fire ants, but
manages to escape with help from a horse thief, Arpid.
Deciding to finish his mission and avenge his brother, Mathayus sneaks into Memnon's
stronghold, Gomorrah, and manages to enter Memnon's palace with help from an urchin.
He briefly meets Memnon's court magician, Philos, who hides him and then directs him
to the courtyard where Memnon is training.
Mathayus tries to shoot Memnon from the watchtower, but is forced to save the urchin from having
his hand amputated by shooting the axe out of Takmet's hand, alerting the guards to his
presence.
Mathayus only barely manages to escape Gomorrah, abducting Cassandra along the way, knowing
that Memnon will come for her.
Cassandra tries to escape from Mathayus and even tells him that she has been Memnon's
prisoner since she was a child.
Sympathetic, Mathayus allows her the choice of leaving, but warns her of worse dangers
and that she is likely safer with him.
However, Memnon sends his right-hand man Thorak and a group of guards to kill Mathayus and
retrieve Cassandra, but Mathayus manages to slay them all single-handedly with the aid
of a sandstorm.
With his dying breaths, Thorak manages to stab Mathayus in the leg with a scorpion blood-laced
arrow.
Cassandra, however, uses her magic to save Mathayus's life.
As an insult, Mathayus sends Thorak's blood-stained pendant to Memnon.
Mathayus, Arpid and Cassandra then run into Philos, who fled Memnon's palace and has perfected
an explosive powder he was working on.
However, they are ambushed by the rebels, now under the rule of Nubian king Balthazar,
who distrusts Mathayus.
Though Mathayus defeats Balthazar in a fight and earns his grudging respect and sanctuary,
Cassandra has a vision of Memnon and his army slaughtering the entire rebel camp.
She informs Mathayus and tells him of a prophecy Memnon once heard: when the moonlight reaches
the House of Scorpio, the King on High will become the invincible Scorpion King, and Memnon
believes himself to be the one destined to become the Scorpion King.
Furthermore, she informs Mathayus that if he faces Memnon, he will most likely die,
but Mathayus assures her that he will make his own destiny and they make love.
The next morning, however, Cassandra returns to Memnon in order to stall him and possibly
kill him.
Mathayus, with help from Balthazar, Arpid, Philos and the army of rebels, launches an
all-out assault on Memnon's stronghold, facing Memnon personally before he can kill Cassandra,
while Balthazar confronts and kills Takmet, avenging Pheron.
The battle rages on until Mathayus is shot by a guard as in Cassandra's vision.
As Memnon takes his place in the House of Scorpio to become the Scorpion King, Cassandra
kills the guard while Mathayus retrieves his bow, pulls the arrow out of his back and uses
it to shoot the exhausted Memnon, sending him off the edge of the roof just as Philos
and Arpid use the explosive powder to destroy the palace's foundation stone, bringing down
the bulk of Memnon's forces.
Memnon is consumed by the flames as he falls to his death.
With the battle over, the remnants of Memnon's army bow before Mathayus, who is hailed as
the Scorpion King.
In the aftermath, Mathayus and Balthazar share a good-natured farewell as the latter returns
to his own kingdom.
Cassandra tells Mathayus that she sees a period of peace and prosperity coming, but subtly
warns him that it will not last forever.
Undeterred, Mathayus decides that they will make their own destiny.
Cast The Rock as Mathayus
Steven Brand as Memnon Kelly Hu as Cassandra
Grant Heslov as Arpid Bernard Hill as Philos
Michael Clarke Duncan as Balthazar Peter Facinelli as Prince Takmet
Sherri Howard as Queen Isis Ralf Möller as Thorak
Branscombe Richmond as Jesup Roger Rees as King Pheron
Joseph Ruskin as Tribal Leader Tyler Mane as Barbarian Chieftain
Reception Critical response
The Scorpion King was met with a mixed critical outcome, currently holding a 41% rating on
Rotten Tomatoes, based on 134 reviews.
Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 45 based on 30 reviews.
Roger Ebert, a film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film 3 out of 4 stars,
writing "A wise move, too, because "The Scorpion King" is set "thousands of years before the
Pyramids," so property values in Gomorrah were a good value for anyone willing to buy
and hold."
James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film two stars, saying: "It's possible to make
an engaging action/adventure picture of this sort, but The Scorpion King isn't it."
Dennis Harvey of Variety gave a positive review, saying the film "rouses excitement mostly
from stuntwork and thesp agility rather than CGI excess."
Nathan Rabin of The Onion's A.V.
Club gave the film a mildly positive review, calling it "prototypical summer-movie fare,
designed to be consumed, enjoyed, and forgotten all at once."
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a score of C+, calling it "plodding
and obvious" but adding that The Rock "holds it together."
Jonathan Foreman of the New York Post gave a negative review, saying that The Scorpion
King "has none of the qualities — epic sweep, relative originality and heartfelt bloodthirstiness
— that made Conan so trashily entertaining."
Box office With a production budget of $60 million, the
film grossed $12 million on its opening day and $36 million on the weekend.
Its total domestic gross is about $91,047,077 while the foreign gross it made is $74,286,103,
resulting in making $165,333,180 worldwide.
Soundtrack Track listing
"I Stand Alone" by Godsmack "Set It Off" 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
Video games The film spawned two video games: The Scorpion
King: Rise of the Akkadian for the Nintendo GameCube and the PlayStation 2 which served
as a prequel to the film's events; and a sequel, The Scorpion King: Sword of Osiris, for the
Game Boy Advance, in which Cassandra is abducted by the ruthless sorcerer Menthu and his lackey,
the witch Isis, prompting Mathayus to undergo a quest to uncover the legendary Sword of
Osiris and use it to defeat Menthu and Isis once and for all and rescue Cassandra.
Sequels Following the film's release, there were initial
plans for a sequel with Johnson to return as Mathayus, but these plans eventually fell
through and the project was shelved.
A direct-to-video prequel, The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior, was released in 2008
with Michael Copon as Mathayus and Randy Couture as the villain, Sargon.
A sequel, The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption, was released in 2012 with Victor
Webster as Mathayus and Billy Zane as the villain, King Talus.
A fourth film in the franchise has been announced, entitled The Scorpion King: The Lost Throne.
Victor Webster will be reprising his role from the third film.
Michael Biehn, Rutger Hauer, Lou Ferrigno and former WWE female wrestler Eve Torres
will be joining the cast.
References
External links Official website
The Scorpion King at the Internet Movie Database The Scorpion King at the TCM Movie Database
The Scorpion King at AllMovie The Scorpion King at Rotten Tomatoes
The Scorpion King at Metacritic