‘Scorpion’ fun, but only little more than junk food

In theaters

THE SCORPION KING, directed by Chuck Russell, written by Stephen Sommers, William Osborne and David Hayter. 94 minutes. Rated PG-13.

What saves Chuck Russell’s “The Scorpion King” from being just another souped-up, box-office hopeful driven by jump cuts and special effects, is that it knows exactly what it is – an overblown pre-summer blockbuster starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a barely clad, eyebrow-arching, camel-riding superhero seeking peace in the Middle East.

As timely as that sounds, the film is actually set thousands of years before our time in the city of Gomorrah. As in Sodom and Gomorrah. It has no pretensions to be anything other than what it is – an unrelenting, big-budget action-adventure cartoon that’s smart enough to wink at itself before winking broadly at its audience. The film never takes itself seriously, which is one of the big reasons it works so well.

Billed as a precursor to 1999’s “The Mummy” and last year’s megahit “The Mummy Returns,” “The Scorpion King” doesn’t recall those films as much as it does the Conan the Barbarian movies of the early 1980s. It stars a famous, well-fed jock, gives him a sword, shoehorns him into a loincloth, tosses him into the arms of a hot-to-trot sorceress (Kelly Hu), and then follows his battle against evil.

In this case, evil comes in the face of a bearded hulk named Memnon (Steven Brand), a gruff tough with a menacing British accent whose leather bondage gear and perpetual scowl punctuates his masculinity the way one of his swords punctures a lung.

Memnon wants world domination, but with Mathayus (the Rock) still steaming that his brother was murdered by this smoldering piece of Eurotrash, that’ll prove difficult to do without these two coming to fisticuffs. As executive produced by the Rock’s boss, the WWF’s Vince McMahon, it’s no surprise that “The Scorpion King” builds to what’s essentially a pre-Pyramid version of Smackdown. Still, in spite of being little more than junk food, the film isn’t all salt and grease.

With Michael Clarke Duncan living large as Mathayus’ friend-in-arms and Grant Heslov providing comic relief as a smartass horse thief, “The Scorpion King” is fast-moving and fun, a guilty pleasure that’s been filmed so many times by Hollywood, it’s nice to see that they got a good deal of it right.

Grade: B

On video and DVD

BEHIND ENEMY LINES, directed by John Moore, written by David Veloz and Zak Penn. 105 minutes. Rated PG-13.

John Moore’s “Behind Enemy Lines” features the answer to capturing Osama bin Laden, ending the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and ceasing all wars in general: Send in Owen Wilson.

As Chris Burnett, a Navy flier whose jet is shot down over Bosnia during the Bosnian War, the actor displays an uncanny ability to run through wide-open fields while dodging bullets, bombs, land mines, sniper fire, helicopters, tanks and, in the end, the full weight of the Serbian army. To stay alive, something he’s ordered to do by his commanding officer, Reigart (Gene Hackman), all Burnett apparently has to do is to duck his head and run like hell; the bullets and bombs grease by him. Even shrapnel doesn’t touch him. In the film’s most energetic (and ludicrous) scene, he darts through a series of exploding mines, which is initially fun to watch until you realize the whirlwind of rocks, glass, shards of metal and other debris kicked up by the explosions aren’t leaving a mark on him.

As written by David Veloz and Zak Penn, two men who have obviously watched their share of “Top Gun,” “Three Kings” and “Saving Private Ryan,” “Behind Enemy Lines” has a handful of well-conceived action scenes and serviceable performances from Wilson and Hackman, but the script is determined to double-cross it at every turn.

Throughout, Burnett is never anything less than a superhuman force field, a man whose fearless ability to infiltrate armies and come away unscathed might feed into the country’s current patriotic, pro-military mood, but which nevertheless gets to the heart of the film’s undoing: It’s impossible to believe any of it. Those seeking a great film about the Bosnian War should rent the “No Man’s Land,” on video and DVD.

Grade: C-

Christopher Smith’s reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, occasionally on Fridays on E! Entertainment’s “E! News Weekend,” Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.