The sands will rise. The heavens will part. The power will be unleashed.
A full scale re-imagining of Universal Pictures' seminal 1932 film, The mummy is a rousing, suspenseful and horrifying epic about an expedition of treasure-seeking explorers in the Sahara desert in 1925. Stumbling upon an ancient tomb, the hunters unwittingly set loose a 3000-year-old legacy of terror, which is embodied in the vengeful reincarnation of an Egyptian priest who had been sentenced to an eternity as one of the living dead.
Special Agent Matti
Woo hoo!
Indiana Jones eat your heart out!
The mummy is an awesome horror thriller action adventure comedy that knocks the socks off the aforementioned. It shakes, it rattles, it rolls. the pace is breakneck, the gags are as dry as the Egyptian sand, the thrills are excellent and I even liked Brendan Fraser.
All the cast is very well chosen, they more than succeed in portraying their characters, despite the limitations of the film's 1930s origins. Brendan is nicely understated, neither overpowering the tale (as might be said of another adventure hero) nor being overshadowed by it. He's cute, charming, brash and funny. This film sees him fulfil the promise showed in George of the jungle. Rachel Weisz is a hilarious ditzy dame with a brain, managing to be nauseatingly wholesome and scarily butch at the same time. But it is John Hannah's inebriated English son of a gentleman but no gentleman himself who steals every scene with his dry yet bitter humour (anyone for a beer?). Kevin J O'Connor gets stuck in both dimensions of his character and can't get out, but that's the script's fault, not his. His just desserts are rewarding, however.
The effects (ILM) are awesome: flesh eating scarabs, zombies, undead soldiers, ancient magics, morphing, sand... wow. The sets are luxuriously appointed, from pharaonic temples to colonial pretension ditto for the costumes. And didn't you ever wonder what the Sphinx looked like with its nose attached?
The mummy is a damned good film that everyone will enjoy. It was the fastest film to gross $100 million (in one week) until Star wars I: The phantom menace opened two weeks later. Watch it and you'll see why.
M (Supernatural theme, medium level violence)
120 minutes (2:00 hours)
DVD rental: 18 July 2001
VHS rental: 18 July 2001
