AmateurMovieReviews.com

Review by Garnet Brooks

This film is a good blockbuster film. It is loosely based on the 1932 horror film of the same name which starred Boris Karloff. Its stars are Brendan Fraser and Rachael Weisz. The director is Stephen Sommers.

The introductory bit is set in ancient Egypt in the days of Seti I. There is a complex of palace and temple buildings-ancient Thebes. The visuals are good. Thebes is a golden city. The Pharaoh finds that his priest Imhotep has betrayed him. Imhotep has begun an affair with the Pharaoh's intended wife. Pharaoh's guard take Imhotep away and the woman kills herself. Imhotep's priests are mummified alive for their involvement in the affair. Imhotep himself is sugjected to the worst of anceient curses. He is entoomed alive as sacred scarab beetles eat his flesh. The curse is a risky one, one that has never been employed before. Should Imhotep rise he will bring with him all the curses of ancient Egypt. He would be immortal and so powerful he could dominate the world.

The scene shifts to a more modern day one. Men who look like they might be in the Foreign Leigon are fighting for their life in the desert. One of them is Rick. He and one other man Beni survive the onslaught of mysterious black-clad dessert fighters. These men are the Magi, the descendents of the Pharaoh's ancient guard and they are bound by an oath to see that the mummy Imhotep never arises. They have a leader named Ardeth Bay. He becomes Rick's ally later in the film.

It is the year 1923 and Evie (Rachael Weisz) is putting away books in a museum in Cairo. Librarian that she is she tries to get them in the right order but high atop her ladder she falls and causes a disaster that tumbles the great rows of books all around the room. Thus this segment begins with a comic element. The light tone is present on and off throughout the film. Evie is a glasses-wearing, rather shy and less than self-confident woman. Evie has a ner-do-well brother Jonathan and he is in the museum to play a joke only he has actually acquired an important artifact. Evie recognizes its importance. It is a map of an ancient city, the one where Imhotep is buried. Evie makes Jonathan confess where he really got the artifact and this leads her to Rick (Bredan Fraser). He is in a Cairo prison about to be hanged. She bargains for his life and in the process acquires a partner, the man who ran the prison. The man insists on going with them on their desert enterprise.

Properly outfitted the four take a ship part way to where they are going. They meet a group of brash Americans who have found Beni and are also on their way to the lost city. This begins a competition to see who can get there first. They arrive at the city simultaneously and begin rummaging around in the ruins. The American open a cursed chest containing canopic jars, remains of Imhotep. Evie and Rick find Imhotep's tomb and open it. An Egyptologist with the American party finds the Book of the Dead. This book was what drew Evie to the site. She filches it from under the Egyptologist's sleeping nose. Before he can wake to warn her she has read a passage of the book out loud. This frees the mummy. He acquires Beni as a minion. Taking his vengeance on the Americans who took his canopic jars, he sucks them dry one by one, becoming more whole as he does so. Now in seemingly intact human form Imhotep wants Evie as a vessel so he can bring back his lost love. He takes her away but Rick follows in time to stop the ceremony. Quite a lot of fisticuffs ensue. Evie finds the companion book to the previous one. The former one brought back the dead but with the gold book she is able to save everyone from Imhotep. He is sucked back into a black pit and the whole temple complex begins to fall apart. They escape with their lives but Beni who could not resist the golden treasure is trapped inside.

The film is full of big action sequences and great special effects. The mummy is juicy and gross at times. At other times it is really scary. He opens his mouth and a swarm of bugs comes out. He can turn to sand and become a mini-sandstorm. He has one particularly terrifying giant sand face. The pacing is quick. Not just action film, it also has interesting and endearing characters.

The DVD has good extras. It has a documentary that looks at the technical aspects of the special effects. The people at Industrial Light and Magic did them. It has a good audio commentary with the director. It has a segment looking at visual, special effects processes. It has a deleted scenes segment. There is also a primer on Egyptology which has a good deal of information. It has DVD-ROM extras also.