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Back from the Dead
Dr. Daniel's review of The Mummy Returns  in for observation
STARRING BRENDAN FRASER, RACHEL WEISZ, JOHN HANNAH, ARNOLD VASLOO, ODED FEHR, PATRICIA VELASQUEZ, THE ROCK, SHAUN PARKES. DIRECTED BY STEPHEN SOMMERS. RATED PG-13. |
Initial Symptoms: The first BIG summer movie, with no other competition in the first week. Sequel to a huge hit from '99 that turned into a surprise smash. Also bumped the Summer Season up to the first week in May.
Dictation: Okay, here's the deal. You couldn't ask for a bigger or better surprise than 1999's The Mummy. It was a big-time special effects movie with decent action, some nasty reanimated dead folks, and Brendan Fraser finally getting to play a hero that wasn't comic-book sweet. Well, with all the hype surrounding the sequel, it was gonna be a hit or miss shot, but I think The Mummy Returns will do nicely as a kick-off for a big summer. Fraser returns to the role of Rick O'Connor, adventurer, and he's back doing the Egyptology thing with his now-wife, Evie (Weisz), and wonder of wonder, it's ten years later than the first film, so they have a son that manages to get in trouble all the time. This junior Pandora sets loose all sorts of evil, and the adventure begins again. Again, Arnold Vosloo plays Imhotep, the beasty he played in the first film, and plays him with as much emoting as is possible for an undead monster.
There's no point in trying to rehash the plot, because quite honestly, this thing is not plot-driven. It's an old-fashioned wowser, not a thinking man's film. We get a truckload of computer-generated effects, battles and stunts a-plenty, and one particularly nasty kiss featuring a beautiful woman and a rotting corpse (it tickled me, but put some in my crowd off their Junior Mints). WWF superstar The Rock makes two appearances, one in a flashback telling the story of Imhotep's past, and one as a CGI head on a huge scorpion body. Amazingly, The Rock does a pretty admirable job here, but if you're a wrestling fan, you should've expected some degree of talent, 'cause The Rock is one of the few "sports entertainers" that can carry a crowd without ever throwing a punch, a chair, or a fit. And, he apparently did well enough to warrant his own film, which will be out next summer (probably in early May).
Diagnosis : For pure fun and nothing more, The Mummy Returns deserves your eye-time. There's nothing here that'll garner critical praise for writing or acting, but honestly, if you're looking for that, you're in the wrong time of year, and definitely shopping in the wrong theatre. It should be said though that with all that works on an entertainment value here, there could've been so much more done to round it out. It seems stupider than a football bat to use that phrase for a summer movie, but part of what made the first Mummy film popular is that it had a sense of humor about it, a very dark humored approach that tended to remind me of some of Sam Raimi's early stuff. This time out, there's less of that spirit and more of "watch what my Pentium III can do now." A word of warning -- if you see this in a theatre with any sort of newer sound system, hold onto your hats, your pants, and probably your shoes. Remember how Twister was engineered, so that the sounds almost reverberated through your feet at times? The Mummy Returns makes Twister sound like a street mime show. Between the sword battles, the machine guns, and other assorted noisemakers, not to mention the howls and screams and everything else, your ears will feel like they've danced cheek-to-cheek with a speaker at a Metallica concert.
Doc's Notes: Bottom line, friends and neighbors? Spend some coin, as most of America already has, and see this thing. Once, for the fun of it, and, maybe, one more time, so you can pay attention to something besides the sound. Sequels are usually not much in comparison to the original. Spielberg and Lucas head the list in doing it the right way. Now we can add Stephen Sommers to that list too.
Image copyright Universal Pictures.
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