Scorpion King: Book of Souls - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Scorpion King: Book of Souls

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie

I’m a big sloppy fan of The Scorpion King with The Rock getting one of his main starring roles. It was goofy, stupid, and a complete revisionist historically speaking to the type of character that the Scorpion King was in the second The Mummy film with Brendan Frasier (even though he was mostly just a flashback and then CGI’d hilariously badly for the rest of his role). It’s fun and goofy, with The Rock proving why he would become the next big action king with his charisma and good looks. A sequel would not have been a bad thing in all reality, but a cheap DTV sequel/prequel that didn’t even star The Rock? Well, that’s not something any of us cared to watch (The Scorpion King 2 was abysmal). Somehow the DTV flick made enough money to warrant two more sequels starring Victor Webster (of Continuum and Mutant X fame), and still the series persisted. Scorpion King: Book of Souls is a deviation from the series a bit, as it brings in Don Michael Paul to direct the newest film.

Now Don Michael Paul is an interesting bird. He’s made most of his films as DTV sequels to other franchises (he made the last two Tremors films, as well as Jarhead 2, Sniper Legacy and the latest Death Race film). Interestingly enough, he also brings over Zach Mcgowan, who starred in his last film, Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy, and does the exact same thing that the two of them did there. Bury a franchise. Scorpion King: Book of Souls saps the cheesy stupidity out of the previous two films and instead tries to make it dark and gritty and serious, something that pretty much is the final nail in the coffin of the franchise (at least we can only hope), as the series has kind of limped along on the hammy “wink at the camera” nature of the last couple of films. Zach sadly can’t act his way out of a paper bag, and the dialog is just as hammy as the previous two films, just with the characters taking themselves deadly serious.

We pick up years after the first movie (no idea if this one even references the last couple, as they seem to be fairly loosely stitched together) with the infamous Scorpion King retired as a blacksmith in some remote village. However, his retirement is about to end, as a rogue warrior has gained control of a magical sword created by Anubis himself. This “king” Nebserek (Peter Mensah) wields the sword and wishes to destroy the race of people who sent his people to live in squalor (yup, you guessed it, the Ackadians). Sending his jackals to flush out the Scorpion King, Nebserek’s soldiers kill the only people who mattered to the aging warrior. Aided by the Nubian princess Tala (Peal Thusi), the warrior must track down the famed book of souls, which is rumored to be the only thing on earth able to destroy the sword of Anubis.

Yeah yeah yeah. Pretty much a done deal. We know how this is going to end. Mathayus (Mcgowan) is going to hack and slash his way through a myriad of trials, make out with a hot wizard chick, and then beat the ever loving snot out of Nebserek. Then ride off into the sunset to continue being The Scorpion King. Not much to tell in that regards. However, this go around the movie is abysmally serious in nature. The original film was kind of a cheeky action/comedy, while the sequels just reveled in hamminess. Don Michael Paul has tried to infuse his sort of “military” harshness and seriousness to the movie, and brings in Zach McGowan, who pretty much helped ruin the Death Race franchise a month or so ago. Now, McGowan isn’t a horrible actor, but he’s limited in these DTV roles. I liked his cameo in The 100 as well as Jody in Shameless, but here he’s just raspy hulking guy who has to mumble his way through Don Michael Paul’s abysmal script. Overall, the movie is your basic DTV schlock, and not even that good schlock at that.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, suggestive content, and some partial nudity




Video:

The Scorpion King sequels have always followed the rules of DTV film making. Use cheaper digital cameras, low budget desert sets, and cheesy looking costumes, but their video encodes have always looked at least GOOD. Scorpion King: Book of Souls is no different, as it comes to Blu-ray with a competent looking encode, that sometimes looks stunning. The color grading shifts from teal with desaturated and muted colors, to the orange and yellow glow of fire light as Mathayus battles Nebserek midst a raging inferno. Facial details look good most of the time, but some of the really dark and shadowy scenes robs it of some detail levels. Faces show grime and dirt, while the simplistic leather and rough hewn cloth garb is intimately detailed during daylight shots. Some of the lower budget props do show up a bit more with the added detail (think the Gollum’s club), but overall this is about as good as it gets for a low budget DTV sequel.







Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is about on par with the video. It’s good, but not exactly the most nuanced of tracks. Vocals and dialog levels are surprisingly even considering how uneven the last two sequels were audio wise, and the surrounds get a goodly amount of information with the copious battles going on. The biggest boon (and detriment) to the movie is the sheer aggressiveness of the LFE channel. The bass just throbs and resonates throughout the entire film, pounding the listener into the chair with the sheer ferocity of it all. However, said bass is more than a bit overcooked, and runs so hot and with such lack of subtlety that it just ends up being a bludgeoning device rather than a wildly nuanced low end. The overall track is more than good enough, and works for an action track, but it just really isn’t that fine tuned in the end.







Extras:

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Final Score: ​

Scorpion King: Book of Souls is living proof that the series has sadly jumped the shark (even for a series that pretty much jumped the shark with the first sequel). I like The Mummy movies, and guiltily enjoy the first The Scorpion King movie, but the sequels have been nothing but DTV fodder for a late night viewing on the SyFy channel after you’ve had too many beers and can’t sleep. It’s cheap, tawdry, and completely devoid of any of the charm that the first movie had. I guiltily almost enjoyed the 3rd and 4th film due to Billy Zane, Ron Perlman and Victor Webster hamming it up, but this one tries to take itself a bit TOO seriously for it’s own good. Plus it unfortunately casts the same flat actor and director who ruined the semi fun Death Race sequels as well. The audio and video is definitely solid enough to enjoy for fans of the DTV sequels, but honestly, I would just skip it unless you’re a die hard fan.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Zach McGowan, Nathan Jones, Peter Mensah, Maylin Ng, Pearl Thusi, Howard Charles, Katy Louise Saunders
Directed by: Don Michael Paul
Written by: David Alton Hedges, Frank DeJohn
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French, Spanish DTS 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Universal
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 102 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: October 23rd, 2018

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Skip it

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I also like these even thou they are not top but still entertaining for what it is worth. lol.

 

[Valerius Walls]

Any trailers on this disc?

 

[Michael Scott]

nothing but the streaming trailers that precede the disc loading.

for trailers, I'll list if there is any trailers ON THE DISC IN THE SPECIAL features section up in the "extras" section of the review. Otherwise on Universal titles the only ones they will have are the streaming trailers on startup (and those naturally vary depending on what Uni is streaming at the time)

 

[Valerius Walls]

So what are the trailers that are in the startup?

 

[Michael Scott]

So what are the trailers that are in the startup?

it will depend on what Universal is streaming at the moment. they will change every few months as Universal titles don't have a locked set of startup extras. they just link to an online streaming service that Universal uses and whatever titles are being promoted at that point and time will play. It can vary from month to month

 

[Valerius Walls]

I know this might be stupid, but what about the DVD copy? It shouldn't change what trailers there are. Or are you telling me that's there's no trailers at all? I'm super confused.

 

[Michael Scott]

I know this might be stupid, but what about the DVD copy? It shouldn't change what trailers there are. Or are you telling me that's there's no trailers at all? I'm super confused.

DVDs don't connect to the same online startup trailers that Blu-rays do due to technology differences, and it's a barebones disc... nada

 

[Valerius Walls]

What is a barebones disc? Never heard of that before.

 

[Michael Scott]

barebones means it's a stripped disc. basically nothing but video, audio and menu. The bare minimum

 

[Valerius Walls]

Alright. I'll say, next one I'm questioning about trailer-wise is Unfriended Dark Web. If there's any in there.