The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson (2008) by William Jones: A fun bit of retro-tinged Cthulhu Mythos-infused stories that form a cycle. Set in 1920's New York, The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson pits the titular Columbia University English literature professor against a series of evils human and otherwise, but mostly otherwise.
The whole thing has a pleasingly pulpy feel, cleanly written and clever at various points. It's the sort of thing I think of as Cthulhu Mythos Comfort Food. It's not daring or revelatory or even all that frightening. But it is entertaining. Jones makes Pearson an engaging character caught up in situations that change the way he looks at the world. And at himself.
Pearson turns out to possess the Cthulhu Mythos equivalent of magical powers. This comes in pretty handy as Jones' addition to the Cthulhu Mythos, a hideous devouring being from outside our universe, may be about to break through in New York thanks to the machinations of a Blue Blood New York millionaire.
Jones throws in a stereotypical Irish cop as an ally for Pearson, along with a plucky female archaeologist. The novel makes some clever tweaks to Lovecraft's ghouls and to more traditional monsters, including mummies and ghosts. There's nothing here to make your brain hurt or to set the cosmic senses tingling -- and sometimes that's just fine. Recommended.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008): written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar; directed by Rob Cohen; starring Brendan Fraser (Rick O'Connell), Maria Bello (Evelyn O'Connell), Luke Ford (Alex O'Connell), John Hannah (Cheaplaughs Johnson), Jet Li (Wasted), Michelle Yeoh (Also Wasted), and Isabella Leong (2000-year-old Hottie): This attempt to restart The Mummy 'franchise' seven years after The Mummy 2 is pretty dumb. It also steals shameless, almost obsessively, from the Indiana Jones movies rather than its own mediocre franchise self.
Former female lead Rachel Weisz had something better to do in 2007, so Maria Bello, a good actress who neither looks nor sounds like Rachel Weisz, fills in. Set about 15 years after The Mummy 2 so that the son of the characters played by franchise leads Brendan Fraser and (now) Bello can be grown up and possibly continue the franchise for another decade despite the simple fact that the actor playing the son, Luke Ford, is a terrible actor with no charisma. To top things off, we leave good old Egypt because Universal was pioneering the idea of co-financing blockbusters with China.
Yes, we go to China. The movie completely wastes Jet Li as the Emperor and Michelle Yeoh as his ancient witchy karate nemesis. It stretches the concept of 'mummy' to include 'terracotta warriors' and 'evil Emperor trapped alive inside a regenerating clay exoskeleton' and 'strangely unrotted people buried under the Great Wall of China for hundreds of years without any mummification procedure being intentionally tried on them.'
Honestly, a bunch of British bog-men could be the features of some nightmarishly goofy fourth movie, though this movie ends ominously with a brief bit about Peruvian mummies. Thankfully, The Mummy: Fitzcarraldo the Right Thing has never appeared.
There are some Yetis here, good guys for once. Some CGI stuff happens, none of it convincingly. The bad living people are transparent stand-ins for the right-wing, post-war Chinese Nationalists (it's 1947), though no mention is made of the Communists or Mao or really anything in actual Chinese history around the time of the 'War of Revolution.' The lead human villain does look an awful lot like Chiang Kai-Shek, though. Tom Cruise can be seen waiting in the shadows waiting for the Curse of the Mummy to fall upon him. Not recommended.
Mirrors (2008): adapted by Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur from the movie by Sungho Kim; directed by Alexandre Aja; starring Kiefer Sutherland (Ben Carson), Paula Patton (Amy Carson), and Amy Smart (Angela Carson): Intermittently enjoyable adaptation of a Korean horror movie that I'm pretty sure was a whole lot better and more coherent. Kiefer Sutherland does what he can, as does Paula Patton, but there's not a lot for them to do. Director Aja manages some creepy visuals among the ruins, though they cease to be interesting after the first hour or so.
Grieving cop Sutherland (he shot someone, or something, not wrongfully, or maybe wrongfully -- if the movie-makers can't be bothered to clearly explain what drives Sutherland's character, why should I?) takes a job as night watchman at a burned-out, high-end New York department store in the tradition of Macy's.
Something terrible lurks within all those mirrors still standing around years after a store-wide fire that killed dozens.
Actually, nothing seems to have been removed from the store after that fire. And the store's still there. Isn't New York real estate worth a lot? Why is this structure still around?
Oh, well.
The last third of the movie is so ridiculous as to reduce the stakes to zero. The female characters are there for the most part to get horribly killed, act as the shrieking voice of reason in the midst of crazy supernatural events, or be the monsters themselves. And that last third. Hoo boy. If nothing else, we learn that the ghosts and demons of this film spend a lot of time dusting. They're tidy. Good for them. Not recommended.
