''The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption'' is a 2012 American

direct-to-video Direct-to-video or straight-to-video refers to the release of a film, television series, short or special to the public immediately on home video formats rather than an initial theatrical release or television premiere. This distribution strat ...

sword and sorcery Sword and sorcery (S&S), or heroic fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of Romance (love), romance, Magic (fantasy), magic, and the supernatural are also ...

action adventure film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

released on January 10, 2012. It is the third installment in ''The Scorpion King'' series and stars

Victor Webster Victor Webster (born February 7, 1973) is a Canadian actor. He is known for being the second actor to play Nicholas Alamain on the NBC daytime soap ''Days of Our Lives''"Ex-Calgarian Victor Webster never misses a Stampede" by Lilana Novakovich, ...

in the title role, replacing

Dwayne Johnson Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American actor and professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he performs on a part-time basis. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional w ...

, with supporting roles by Bostin Christopher,

Temuera Morrison Temuera Derek Morrison (born 26 December 1960) is a New Zealand actor who first gained recognition in his home country for playing Dr. Hone Ropata on the soap opera ''Shortland Street''. He garnered critical acclaim for starring as Jake "The M ...

Krystal Vee Krystal Vee () is a Thai actress, model and producer. Vee worked as a model in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country ...

Selina Lo Selina Lo (born 29 January 1994) is a British actress. Her film roles include Guan Yin in Joe Carnahan's ''Boss Level'' (2020) and The Gasp in David Bruckner's ''Hellraiser (2022 film), Hellraiser'' (2022). She also appeared in season 2 of ''Lord ...

Kimbo Slice Kevin Ferguson (February 8, 1974 – June 6, 2016), better known as Kimbo Slice, was a Bahamian-American mixed martial artist, professional boxer, and actor. Originally a bare-knuckle boxer, he became noted for his role in mutual combat stre ...

Dave Bautista David Michael Bautista Jr. (born January 18, 1969) is an American actor and retired professional wrestler. Regarded as one of the most prolific professional wrestlers of his generation, he rose to fame for his multiple stints in WWE betwee ...

Billy Zane William George Zane Jr. (born February 24, 1966) is an American actor. His breakthrough role was in the Australian film ''Dead Calm (film), Dead Calm'' (1989), a performance that earned him a nomination for the Chicago Film Critics Association, ...

, and

Ron Perlman Ronald N. Perlman (born April 13, 1950) is an American actor. His credits include the roles of Amoukar in ''Quest for Fire (film), Quest for Fire'' (1981), Salvatore in ''The Name of the Rose (film), The Name of the Rose'' (1986), Vincent in th ...

. The film continues the story of Mathayus, after he becomes the Scorpion King at the end of ''

The Scorpion King ''The Scorpion King'' is a 2002 action adventure film directed by Chuck Russell. The film stars Dwayne Johnson (credited as The Rock) as the lead, with Steven Brand, Kelly Hu, Grant Heslov, and Michael Clarke Duncan in supporting roles. It ...

'' and focuses on Mathayus battling Talus and trying to stop him from claiming the Book of the Dead. This was the first film produced by

Universal 1440 Entertainment Universal Pictures Home Entertainment LLC (UPHE) is the home video distribution division of Universal Pictures, an American film studio owned by NBCUniversal, the entertainment unit of Comcast. UPHE is the home video distributor for all of the ...

Plot

Years after giving Mathayus the prophecy that his peaceful kingdom would not last forever, his wife Queen Cassandra dies. Mathayus allows his kingdom to fall apart in the aftermath of the deadly plague which claimed his wife's life, and he believes his reign of nobility to be over. Mathayus then becomes a

mercenary A mercenary is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather t ...

once more, just as he was prior to his war with Memnon. Talus is the younger brother of Horus, a powerful king of

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

; Talus wishes to conquer his brother's kingdom since Horus was made king over him. To do so, Talus and his army go to the

Far East The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...

to steal the ''

Book of the Dead The ''Book of the Dead'' is the name given to an Ancient Egyptian funerary texts, ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom of Egypt, New Kingdom (around 1550 BC) to around 50 BC ...

'' from Ramusan, a king and ally of Horus. To stop Talus, Horus hires Mathayus and pairs him with the Teutonic warrior Olaf. Talus kidnaps Ramusan's daughter, Silda. Ramusan then tells Mathayus that if he can save his daughter, he will have the right to marry her and once again raise a kingdom. Before Mathayus manages to rescue Silda, she is whisked away by the

ninja A , or was a spy and infiltrator in pre-modern Japan. The functions of a ninja included siege and infiltration, ambush, reconnaissance, espionage, deception, and later bodyguarding.Kawakami, pp. 21–22 Antecedents may have existed as ear ...

army of the mysterious "Cobra". Talus hires Mathayus and Olaf to bring back the princess, as well as Cobra's head. They wind up in an exiles' camp led by Cobra, who turns out to be Silda herself. Talus arrives at Ramusan's palace and takes the ''Book of the Dead'' while injuring Ramusan. With this, he reanimates the dead warriors Zulu Kondo, Agromael and Tsukai. In a test to see their strength, Talus orders them to kill his best men, which they do easily. Tsukai and Zulu Kondo are ordered to attack the exiles' camp. Working together, Mathayus, Olaf, and Silda's ninjas manage to defeat Zulu Kondo in battle. However, Tsukai manages to escape. Mathayus and Olaf return to Ramusan's palace, now Talus' headquarters. They pretend to have rescued Silda and present a severed head supposedly belonging to Cobra. Talus still intends to marry Silda and takes her to his sleeping chambers. Mathayus attacks Talus, who is saved by the timely intervention of Tsukai. Mathayus pursues Talus while Silda faces Tsukai. At the same time, Olaf attempts to get the ''Book of the Dead'' but has to fight Agromael. The ninjas stop Talus, and Mathayus somehow finds the ailing Ramusan and together they use the ''Book of the Dead'' to prevent Tsukai and Agromael from killing Silda and Olaf, respectively. With Ramusan dying in his daughter's arms and Talus left to face the wrath of the ninjas, Tsukai and Agromael bow down to Mathayus as the new ruler of Ramusan and Talus' kingdoms. When Horus arrives at the city gates, he is greeted by Mathayus, who has taken up the mantle of Scorpion King once more. It is later revealed that Mathayus and Silda shared a kiss on the night of their earlier party.

Cast

as Mathayus, the Scorpion King * Bostin Christopher as Olaf *

as King Ramusan *

as Princess Silda / Cobra *

as Tsukai * Kevin 'Kimbo Slice' Ferguson as Zulu Kondo *

as Agromael *

as King Talus *

as Horus * Brandon Cohen as Salim *

Kelly Hu Kelly Ann Hu (born February 13, 1968) is an American actress. She starred as Dr. Rae Chang on the American television soap opera '' Sunset Beach'' and as Michelle Chan on the American television police drama series '' Nash Bridges''. She has st ...

as Cassandra (flashback from ''

'')

Production

The script originally called for most of the movie to be set in Europe. But because of the movie's limited budget, the director moved the movie to Thailand, where it was cheaper to shoot. They used CGI to add the sand around Horus's city, which is supposed to be in a desert. They had 400 extras for the battle scenes, but most of the fighting was done with the main cast plus just 12 stunt men, who played multiple roles in different costumes so they could be in all of the battles. The rest of the extras weren't trained to fight, so they stayed in the background, and careful observers can see that they aren't actually doing any dangerous fighting themselves. They were originally planning for Zulu Kondo to throw his hammer, then have it magically fly back to his hand. But they decided to cut that bit when they saw the 2011 movie

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...

had already done the same thing. Many of the movie's scenes were done at tourist locations, which they weren't able to reserve just for themselves. So they frequently had to stop filming because tourists walked through the scene.

Reception

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

, who gave the film a 4/10 rating, criticized it for "wretched dialogue, awful acting (Victor Webster stumbles over every sentence he's handed), and stagey action, much of which plays more like rehearsal than the real deal. ..My bar was very low, and yet the film somehow found a way to sink beneath it." Jason Best of ''

TVTimes ''TV Times'' is a British television listings magazine. From 1955 until 1991, it was the only source of seven-day listings for ITV and, from 1982, Channel 4 (as well as S4C in Wales in an enclosed local supplement titled '' Sbec''). The magaz ...

'': "The storytelling is so ham-fisted that you really need to be a confirmed fan of the action fantasy genre to sit through all the boring stuff in between." Conversely,

CraveOnline Mandatory (formerly CraveOnline Media) is a lifestyle website based in Los Angeles with sales offices in New York City, Chicago and San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial D ...

gave the film a 7/10 rating and commented: "If I had to rank them, I'd say ''The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption'' is the least of the Scorpion King movies (they've been subtly deteriotating since the first one), lacking as it does a dashing lead performance or a particularly involving storyline. but it's still a damned fun B-movie, with likable characters and a series of entertainingly produced action sequences for fantasy movie fans of all stripes." The film has earned $4,098,483 in home market sales.

Sequel

A fourth film in the franchise has been released, entitled '' The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power''. Victor Webster reprised his role from the third film.

Michael Biehn Michael Biehn ( or ; born July 31, 1956) is an American actor, primarily known for his roles in science fiction films directed by James Cameron; as Sgt. Kyle Reese in ''The Terminator'' (1984), Cpl. Dwayne Hicks in ''Aliens (film), Aliens'' (1 ...

Rutger Hauer Rutger Oelsen Hauer (; 23 January 1944 – 19 July 2019) was a Dutch actor, with a career that spanned over 170 roles across nearly 50 years, beginning in 1969. In 1999, he was named by the Dutch public as the Best Dutch Actor of the Century. H ...

Lou Ferrigno Louis Jude Ferrigno Sr. (; born November 9, 1951) is an American actor and retired professional bodybuilder. He won an IFBB Mr. America title and two consecutive IFBB Mr. Universe titles, and appeared in the documentary film '' Pumping Iron'' ...

, and former 2007

WWE Diva Search ''WWE Diva Search'' (formerly ''WWE Raw Diva Search'') is an American talent competition that was produced and held by WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). The first winner was Jaime Koeppe, but she did not receive a contract like subsequen ...

winner

Eve Torres Eve Torres Gracie (born Eve Marie Torres on August 21, 1984) is an American actress, dancer, model, martial arts instructor and retired professional wrestler. She is best known for her tenure in WWE, where she was a record tying three-time WWE D ...

also joined the cast.Patta, Gig (2015-01-13). ''Latino-Review.com''. Retrieved 2015-01-18.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Scorpion King 3, The: Battle For Redemption 2012 films 2012 action adventure films 2012 direct-to-video films 2010s fantasy adventure films American action adventure films American fantasy adventure films American sequel films Direct-to-video action films Direct-to-video adventure films Direct-to-video fantasy films Direct-to-video sequel films Direct-to-video interquel films Direct-to-video prequel films Films directed by Roel Reiné Films scored by Trevor Morris (musician) Films set in the 4th millennium BC Films set in the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt Films shot in Thailand Jungle adventure films Muay Thai films American Muay Thai films Ninja films American swashbuckler films American sword and sorcery films The Mummy (franchise) The Scorpion King (film series) Universal Pictures direct-to-video films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films American prequel films Universal 1440 Entertainment films English-language science fantasy films English-language action adventure films English-language fantasy adventure films