CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games Books TV
Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

97 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83 Alexandra
43 Anamorph
35 Babysitters, The
32 Backseat
80 Band's Visit, The
62 Battle for Haditha
47 Bella
63 Blind Mountain
71 Blindsight
47 Boarding Gate
63 Body of War
58 Bra Boys
70 Caramel
54 Cashback
44 Chaos Theory
32 Chapter 27
69 Chicago 10
82 Chop Shop
46 CJ7
78 Counterfeiters, The
30 Cover
48 Dark Matter
35 Deal
61 Dhamma Brothers, The
92 Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73 Duchess of Langeais, The
20 Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58 Fall, The
43 Favor, The
58 First Saturday in May, The
57 Flawless
87 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx From Within
44 Frontier(s)
59 Fugitive Pieces
41 Funny Games
66 George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61 Girls Rock!
55 Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57 Grand, The
58 Hats Off
68 Honeydripper
xx Jack and Jill vs. the World
67 Jellyfish
xx Kiss the Bride
37 Life Before Her Eyes, The
72 Life of Reilly, The
50 Look
65 Married Life
35 Meet Bill
63 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
54 Mister Lonely
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
49 Noise
61 OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83 Paranoid Park
55 Pathology
48 Penelope
90 Persepolis
62 Planet B-Boy
xx Plumm Summer, A
67 Praying with Lior
44 Previous Engagement, A
72 Priceless
17 Prom Night
69 Redbelt
72 Roman de gare
48 Run, Fat Boy, Run
85 Savages, The
24 Sex and Death 101
66 Shelter
75 Shotgun Stories
40 Sleepwalking
67 Snow Angels
64 Son of Rambow
71 Standard Operating Procedure
76 Stuff and Dough
64 Surfwise
xx Tashan
82 Taxi to the Dark Side
57 Teeth
56 Then She Found Me
55 Tracey Fragments, The
56 Turn the River
72 Tuya's Marriage
83 U2 3D
59 Under the Same Moon
76 Unforeseen, The
xx Unsettled
91 Up the Yangtze
55 Vice
79 Visitor, The
64 Water Lilies
45 Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57 Without the King
74 Witnesses, The
63 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart
45 Zombie Strippers

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.



Scorpion King, The
MCA/Universal Pictures

Scorpion King, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 45 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
5.5 out of 10
based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 32 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for intense sequences of action violence and some sensuality

Starring Dwayne Johnson (The Rock), Steven Brand, Kelly Hu, Michael Clarke Duncan, Grant Heslov, Peter Facinelli, Ralph Moeller, and Sherri Howard

Inspired by the legendary Egyptian warrior this prequel to the opening sequence of "The Mummy Returns" is set 5,000 years ago in the notorious city of Gomorrah.


GENRE(S): Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: David Hayter
William Osborne
Stephen Sommers (also story)
Jonathan Hales (story)
 
DIRECTED BY: Chuck Russell  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: October 1, 2002 
Video: October 1, 2002 
Theatrical: April 19, 2002 
RUNNING TIME: 85 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Like every other action movie, it's designed for a 14-year-old boy's mentality, but it's enjoyable enough to turn most people into 14-year-old boys.
Read Full Review
70
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
The Scorpion King, so far from perfect it isn't funny, is nevertheless one of those movies that catches you up in something bigger than yourself, namely, an archetypal desire to enjoy good trash every now and then.
Read Full Review
70
Variety Dennis Harvey
Rouses excitement mostly from stuntwork and thesp agility rather than CGI excess.
Read Full Review
70
LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
Director Chuck Russell ("The Mask") keeps the computer effects to a minimum, emphasizing instead the essential ingredients of a Saturday-afternoon serial, namely, venom-tipped arrows, pissed-off cobras and a buxom babe.
Read Full Review
70
New Times (L.A.) Luke Y. Thompson
Chuck Russell doesn't make masterpieces -- he makes good B movies ("The Mask," "The Blob"), and The Scorpion King more than ably meets those standards.
Read Full Review
63
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Has been fine-tuned for adolescent boys, from the hectic pace right down to the way Cassandra's breasts are always barely draped.
63
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Here is a movie that embraces its goofiness like a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Read Full Review
60
Chicago Reader Ted Shen
Within the limitations of the genre, the film succeeds fairly well, with enough giddy sophomoric humor, stunning fights, titillating sex, and exotic sets and costumes to keep an audience entertained.
Read Full Review
60
Film Threat David Grove
The film is dumb, formulaic, the other actors are scarcely worth mentioning, and the plot is merely an excuse to set up the action scenes. But it didn’t bore me; The Rock is ceaselessly entertaining.
Read Full Review
60
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
The movie itself is a live-action cartoon, a fast-moving and cheerfully simplistic 88 minutes of exaggerated action put together with the preteen boy in mind.
Read Full Review
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
The Rock manages to play both with a crude candor more genuine than the entertaining if contrived spectacle around him, and a surprising big-screen charisma and ease that makes him a natural-born screen hero.
Read Full Review
58
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Isn't incompetent; it's just plodding and obvious. If anything holds it together, it's The Rock's ironic ability to tread lightly, which the movie is neither fast nor inventive enough to recognize as different from the spirit of Arnold.
Read Full Review
50
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
For a movie with such a misplaced sense of history, The Scorpion King seems afraid to have more fun with its own stupidity.
Read Full Review
50
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The good news about The Scorpion King is that The Rock turns out to be a charismatic, ingratiating screen presence.
Read Full Review
50
ReelViews James Berardinelli
It is possible to make an engaging action/adventure picture of this sort, but The Scorpion King isn't it. The movie isn't godawful, but it's far from inspired, and, as I sat through its 90 minute running length, I found my mind wandering.
Read Full Review
50
The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Prototypical summer-movie fare, designed to be consumed, enjoyed, and forgotten all at once.
Read Full Review
50
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
It's impossible to overstate how deeply dumb all of this is, but it skims along at a brisk clip and manages not to overdo the nudge-nudge, wink-wink humor.
Read Full Review
50
USA Today Mike Clark
Of course, The Rock looks the part, though with a headband and buckskin, he'd also look like Tonto on steroids.
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A dumb movie, but it's also a knowing one: a cheap castle of lewd trivia and corny excitement built on The Rock.
Read Full Review
50
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The Rock isn't always comfortable delivering dialogue. He's handsome, physically sculpted and farther along dramatically than Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Conan the Barbarian," but he's still learning the simple acting skills an action hero needs.
Read Full Review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
The style here is much more in the spirit of the smash and slash of the Conan movies than the banter and computer-generated monsters of the Mummy movies.
Read Full Review
40
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Predictably dumber than its predecessors, though that shouldn't get in the way of its profitability.
38
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Plays like Abbott and Costello Meet Conan the Barbarian.
Read Full Review
33
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Bang-bang, kiss-kiss, yawn-yawn. While dull death metal churns on the soundtrack, Johnson engages in one big brawl after another.
Read Full Review
30
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Ultimately undone by its sheer busyness. The screenwriters never get the story to settle down, and it becomes a case of one damn thing after another.
Read Full Review
30
Village Voice Ed Park
Director Chuck Russell lacks the visual panache, the comic touch, and perhaps the budget of Sommers's title-bout features, which refined a historically grounded B-movie sensibility into pure, gasp-inducing entertainment.
Read Full Review
30
Washington Post Dan Via
The movie doesn't stink exactly, but it comes dispiritingly close.
Read Full Review
25
New York Post Jonathan Foreman
Unfortunately, Scorpion King has none of the qualities -- epic sweep, relative originality and heartfelt bloodthirstiness -- that made "Conan" so trashily entertaining.
Read Full Review
20
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
For all the swords 'n' sandals hoodoo that makes up the wilting backbone of Jonathan Hale's script, the Rock is, nevertheless, fun to keep an eye on.
Read Full Review
10
The New York Times Stephen Holden
As this chaotic barrage of muscle flexing, swordplay, fireballs, crude digital effects and comic-book quips hurls itself off the screen, it's like having several garbage cans clogged with stale pizza, lukewarm cola, soggy French fries and greasy, ketchup-stained napkins emptied over your head.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 5.5 (out of 10) based on 32 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kevin J. gave it a10:
I liked this movie

Jared C. gave it a0:
For me, this is a huge letdown. It didn't give the point nor reason why they call it The Scorpian King. It just is, because it mentions it in The Mummy movies and as a joke one time in this. But really, the writing is fine but things aren't as expected in this movie, the acting by the Rock is horrible, his acting here will give him roles in the future that are almost so bad, that its corny. But the movie is nothing more than a wrestler in a story with cheeze.

[Anonymous] gave it a0:
Whenever someone asks me what the worst film is that I've ever seen my only answer is 'The Scorpion King'. I do not really remember that much (luckily) but I do know that this film was darn boring and I would not recommend this film to anybody. I also think The Rock is one of the worst actors around.

Sam gave it a6:
The real problem with this prequel is in the mummy returns. If it had set a far more interesting and detailed background for the Scorpion King, it would've been really good. Since it didn't you just don't care.

Cassie A. gave it a 9:
Compared to other movies I have seen (and I mean BAD) This one was pretty dang good. The Rock was HOT! The storyline was pretty dang entertaining. Sure it wasn't historcally correct (according to some reviews) but who watches movies to learn someting on a Friday night?! COME ON!!

[Anonymous] gave it a 10:
The rock is sooo fit!!! great movie, cool action scenes. hope they make a sequel.

Le critical gave it a 6:
Now i know that this movie doesent take much grey matter to watch, however, it was very entertaining to me for some reason. it made me feel like a kid again. although the humore was dry, i found the dvd commentary by the rock hillarious. check it out.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | BOOKS | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise | Partnerships                                Visit other CNET Networks sites:

Copyright ©2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use