The Rock in The Scorpion King

The action epic stars Dwayne Johnson (aka WWF superstar, the Rock) as Mathayus, an assassin hired by the head of an ancient band of rebel tribes to kill Cassandra (the scantily clad Kelly Hu). She's the sorceress who helped the wicked warlord Memnon (Steven Brand, the poor man's Russell Crowe) to defeat all who dared oppose his heartless reign of terror.

Kelly Hu in The Scorpion King

The real torture here will be for anyone in the audience hoping for more than a 90-minute carnival of comic-book carnage and Conan-like conversation. "I make my own destiny," Mathayus declares in one of the few lines of dialogue that's more than three words long. Don't go looking for any of the historical perspectives or tragic Shakespearean elements of Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia or even The Lion King. For The Scorpion King cuts to the chase, virtually from frame one. Rock meets girl, Rock looses girl, Rock beheads all bad guys, Rock gets girl. All without so much as breaking a sweat, much less a bone, as he's thrown over castle walls, shot with poison arrows, catapulted, beaten and abused by every other obstacle the special-effects department can throw at him.

And the rocking isn't limited to the on-screen variety. The Scorpion King's soundtrack moves from classical orchestration to a crunching compilation of today's nu-metal gurus including Godsmack, Nickelback and Sevendust. Correct me if I err, but I don't remember the digital distortion box being invented until several years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Not that any timeline or reality matters to The Scorpion King's target audience. An audience, by the way, that's been well primed for the premiere by a maddening media campaign.

Along the dusty trail, Grant Heslov provides a few welcome moments of comic relief as Mathayus's horse-thieving sidekick. And Michael Clarke Duncan (from Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes) adds some color and gets to smash up Memnon's royal palace as well. But, make no mistake, The Scorpion King is the Rock's crown to wear and don it he does with all the subtle brutality that his fans will gladly line up to expect.

To followers of such similar sword operas as The Thirteenth Warrior, Beastmaster (I and II) and the ever-popular Kull the Conqueror, this movie will also serve them well. As for me, it's been a long time since the eighth grade and my tastes have matured (well, a little). And since I can get into R-rated movies by myself now, there's no reason to go back.