With Rachel Weisz unavailable, Brendan Fraser reckons he couldn't have hoped for a better partner than Maria Bello for the new Mummy movie.

"Maria Bello is sexy, she's sassy, she's got class, she's got energy, and she's bad news with that Winchester Rifle," he says.

Maria, who takes over the role of Evelyn from Rachel in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, joins Michelle Yeoh and Jet-Li in the all new exciting line-up which sees Brendan's character Rick O'Connell head to China to do battle with a nasty dragon emperor awoken from the dead.

"We've got a brand new premise," says Brendan. "We've gone to China to discover the Terracotta warriors. We've decided that a despotic emperor did something bad and he got cursed along with his army, and Jet Li plays the Dragon Emperor, which is incredible casting. If you could have a dream of who it could be its Jet.

"Expect a lot of excitement, a lot of what people enjoyed about the first two movies," he adds about the third film in the Mummy franchise. "It's not compulsory that you saw them. It doesn't matter if you didn't, to get a bang out of this one, because it stands on its own two feet."