Video of the Week: 'Scorpion King'

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- "The Scorpion King," a cheerful little blockbusterette of a sword & sandal adventure, is out on video on Tuesday ($26.98 list price on DVD, $22.98 list VHS).

It's from the same producers that made the "Mummy" movies, and was advertised as a prequel to them, although there's really no plot connection at all. The real King Scorpion was apparently a ruler of Upper (Southern) Egypt more than 5,000 years ago, before the land of the Nile was unified.

This movie, however, is set largely in the Biblical city of Gomorrah, which, before its unfortunate encounter with fire and brimstone, stood in Canaan near the Dead Sea, a long way from Upper Egypt. (Various California locations stand in reasonably well for Biblical Palestine.)

In this movie, it's not even clear whether pro wrestler The Rock or his evil rival, played by Steven Brand, is supposed to be the Scorpion King. (Trust me, if that kind of historical sloppiness bothers you, please do yourself a favor and don't buy this movie.)

"The Scorpion King" cost $60 million to make (compared to $98 million for "The Mummy Returns"). Still, it earned a respectable $90 million domestically. It's not bad, but its profitability is almost completely due to The Rock, who is "the most electrifying man in sports entertainment," if he doesn't say so himself -- which he does ... a lot.

Although Vin Diesel, another muscleman, got a huge build-up this summer as Hollywood's next action superstar, I wouldn't count The Rock out of the race.

Under his real name of Dwayne Johnson, he started out as Warren Sapp's designated successor on the University of Miami's defensive line, but blew out his knee and played in the Canadian Football League before taking up wrestling.

The ex-defensive linemen with the perfect teeth and the flexible eyebrows has already shown off some acting chops by becoming the superstar of the World Wrestling Federation (which recently had to change its name to the more descriptive World Wrestling Entertainment after losing a litigatory smackdown against another "WWF," the panda-loving World Wildlife Federation). Football players are good at being coached and The Rock has been well-trained by master showman McMahon.

McMahon's all-purpose entertainment product provides a better training ground than a lot of other action stars' early careers, such as Arnold Schwarzenneger's previous gig as a bodybuilder. When I was a kid growing up in Studio City, Calif., Chuck Norris was just the guy who owned the neighborhood kung fu school.

In the old days, wrestlers simply had to play either a "face" (good guy) or a "heel" (bad guy) for their entire career. But modern pro wrestling's complex soap opera plots require characters like The Rock to straddle both sides of the fence.

Hollywood is in the mood these days to make movies set in the ancient world.

A third generation pro wrestler, The Rock is the offspring of America's two most muscular racial groups (judging by how hugely over-represented both groups are in the National Football League). His maternal grandfather, Chief Peter Maivia, was the first Samoan star, while his father Rocky Johnson was the WWF's first African-American Tag Team champion. Yet, The Rock doesn't look particularly Samoan or black. Instead, he gives the impression of being some sort of future human, a superbly handsome specimen from a race that will someday evolve from all that is most formidable in existing humanity.

The bad guy in The Scorpion King is -- prepare for a shock -- an English-accented white aristocrat with Hitlerish-sounding intentions to impose "order for 1,000 years" on the "free tribes." The tribes, oddly enough, are each internally multiracial (which must have come as a surprise to anthropologists). Fortunately, The Rock is around to lead America (oops, I mean the free tribes) to victory over the English Nazi toff.

Although "The Scorpion King" embodies the same racial conventions as other recent adventure films like The Time Machine and Atlantis -- noble Tiger Woodsian multiracials battle Northern European oppressors -- it's less schematic and more just a good-natured pastiche of ancient legends from all over.