AmateurMovieReviews.com

Review by Garnet Brooks

This sequel to the popular film The Mummy retains the original cast. They include Brendan Fraser, Rachael Weisz, John Hannah, Oded Fehr, and Arnold Vosloo. The director is Stephen Sommers, the man who directed the previous film.

The film is set in 1933 about ten years after the original. As with the original the film is set in and around Cairo, Egypt. Rick and Evie have been married for some time and have a son named Alex who is nine. They spend part of their time back in England but presumably have been working as archaeologists most of the time. The original film ends with the destruction of the mummy Imhotep. In this film unlike the other, both Rick and Evie seem to have some sort of mystical destiny. Rick, we find, has a tattoo that marks him as one of the Magi, the descendants of the sacred guards of Pharaoh. Evie is having visions and come to believe that she is reincarnated, having been the daughter of Pharaoh Seti I. In her visions she is an actual witness to the death of her father at the hands of Imhotep and his lover. She also has a vision of engaging in a sword fight and seems to suddenly remember how to fight in ways the old Evie did not.

Like the original film, this one begins with a sequence from the remote past. This time it is the story of the Scorpion King. He is thought to have been the earliest of the Egyptian kings but little is known about him. The king loses his army and swearing revenge pledges his soul to Anubis. The god Anubis makes him into a creature which looks like a scorpion but has a human torso. The special effects on this are not very good and the thing looks very early video game. The wrestling star, The Rock, is the Scorpion King and turns in a fairly good performance. When the king promises his soul, the desert is transformed into a green oasis. We see the Scorpion King put on a bracelet belonging to Anubis and being transformed. An army of creatures emerges to serve him. The animation on these is good. They have the jackal-like head of Anubis but are six foot creatures standing on two legs, part human and part canine in outline. The Scorpion King does not die; instead, he is entoomed and waits deep within a pyramid till he is revived.

The action shifts to 1933 and to Evie and Rick digging as usual. This time they discover the Bracelet of Anubis, taking it back to England. Others have an interest in the ancient artifact. A woman who appears to be the lost love of Imhotep is searching for it and appears in Rick and Evie's home in England. There they find Jonathan who is a bit inebriated. They mistake him for Rick. A not too surprising melee occurs. In it, a double decker London bus is decapitated and Alex is kidnapped.

Alex has put on the bracelet and he is in the hands of Imhotep, now risen again. Rick and Evie though have something called the Spear of Osiris. Though they do not know it till late in the film, the spear can kill the Scorpion King. They are distraught and pursue Alex through the desert. The boy is able to see the next stop on the journey using the bracelet and, plucky lad that he is, he leaves behind clues for his parents. The final stop on the journey is the oasis of the Scorpion King. Imhotep and his party travel first by train then by camel across the desert. Rick looks up an old friend named Izzy who has a dirigible and in it they follow the trail while the army of the Magi follow behind them expecting they will have to fight the army of Anubis. One of the spectacular special effects is the face the Mummy makes when he is trying to destroy the dirigible.

True to form this blockbuster has a big action sequence finish. Getting there all go through the dense undergrowth of the oasis finding pint-sized, spear throwing, mummy creatures who laugh manically when they kill someone. In the end both Imhotep and the Scorpion King are dispatched. The film is a good one for its genre. And, the meticulous recreations of Egyptian culture and architecture are fascinating. The characters appear to be speaking an authentic Egyptian which is then translated in subtitles. The special effects are quite good.

This DVD has a good selection of special features. It has a good commentary. There is an interview with The Rock and a special feature about The Scorpion King which was released shortly after this film, apparently to great success. Other extras include DVD-ROM features and outtakes.