THE MUMMY RETURNS
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, The Rock
Directed by: Stephen Sommers
Distributed by: Universal Pictures

Date: 5/7/01
By: Rice

    Wow! The Mummy Returns kicked ass this weekend at the box office, raking in an amazing 70 million dollars; a record for a non-holiday opening weekend. Take for example my friends and I who tried to catch it on Saturday. We congregated at around 4 in the afternoon, reached the theaters around 4:45, and barely caught the 9:35 showing. Phew.

    With all that said and done, the Mummy Returns is a nice action movie. Not 'incredible', or 'smashing'. Merely nice. Why? Because it seems like all it did was mix the right ingredients for a generic Hollywood action movie, stir, place it in the oven at 350 for half an hour, and presto! The Mummy Returns. I must admit I never saw the original Mummy. However, I doubt it would have changed my opinion much about its sequel. This sort of reminds me of the Terminator series. The first one passed without much fanfare, but the second one was an instant hit.

"Here's looking at you, kid."

    To be honest with you, I'm not quite sure what the plot of The Mummy Returns is. Something about the evil mummy Imhotep wanting to conquer the world with his girlfriend, but needs The Scorpion King's army. Brendan Fraser's family somehow is tied into this because of destiny. Despite my relatively weak summary, I think I may have covered just about 75% of the plot. Hmmm... as you can tell, Stephen Sommers did a pretty shoddy job in explaining the story. There isn't really much background depth to The Mummy Returns. Then again, it could be because I missed the first Mummy, but from reading other reviews, I doubt it. Also, throughout the entire showing, I kept having these nagging Indiana Jones deja vu's. The entire archaeologist in life-threatening adventures overarching theme was just too much like good ol' Indy.

    Adventure / action is what's left to carry the movie, and it's a good thing Sommers nailed it down pretty well. Otherwise, I'd have been pretty pissed for waiting 5 hours for the damn show. The first half featured some great gun-tottin' sequences and chases in various locales including Egypt and London, climaxing with the good guys being hounded by mummies in a double decker bus. Later on it slows down considerably as the special effect guru's at Industrial Light and Magic take over, which is my single beef with the action in this movie. Now, I know how damn hard it is to render all those effects, but the ones in The Mummy Returns are so noticably fake, especially the final confrontation. What's up, ILM? Maybe they're saving the good stuff for SW:EP2. Mmmm... can't wait.

Yeah. Something bad is about to happen.

    The acting jobs were all done relatively well, with little to no complaint on my end. Fraser and Weisz had a good chemistry going on between them, and I found myself silently cheering for their characters. Whoever played their son, Alex, also did a marvelous job. He wasn't the typical dumb, kidnapped child who's scared and whiny. He had considerable knowledge of ancient Egyptian culture, and is rather clever when dealing with the baddies. Personally, I thought he would've done a better job than Jake Lloyd in Episode 1. He gives Haley Joel Osment a good run for his money as today's top kid actor.

    Oh, and there's also this Scorpion King character played by some dude named... um... The Rock? Word on the street is that he's a wrestler. The man, who many are dubbing as the next Arnold, is actually a good actor. Then again, WWF is all acting, so there should be no surprises. All kidding aside, The Rock accounts for little more than a cameo, which is disappointing, considering how Universal used his name generously as part of the advertisement for the movie. However, there's going to be a spinoff, prequel-ish flick called The Scorpion King starring none other than The Rock himself, and it promises to kick some serious candy ass.

The Rock's in The Mummy Returns for about, three and a half minutes. Note the blatently cheesy CG in the back.

    Despite a relatively negative review, I had a blast watching The Mummy Returns. I'm an action junkie, and a fan of Indiana Jones adventure genres, so this movie fit the bill perfectly. Plus there are smatterings of subtle, dry humor throughout, and most of them are worth a good chuckle or two, if not all out belly laughs. It's simply a typical, summer blockbuster film loaded with special effects, explosions, guns, and lame jokes. It may not be original, but it's still entertaining operating as a clone.

Grade: B
-- Good, rollicking fun, along with dizzying action. Extremely predictable. Has a "been there, done that" kind of feel.

Babe-o-meter: B
-- This is the second straight movie I've seen w/ Rachel Weisz. She's prettier in this movie. There's also another Egyptian chick that's got a nice body.