As the title suggests, the Mummy (Arnold Vosloo) does indeed return. As do Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Oded Fehr and Patricia Velasquez. It is eight years since Rick and Evelyn saved the world from the Imhotep the mummy in 1999's The Mummy. Since then they have married borne a precocious son, Alex (Freddie Boath). But Imhotep, and his girlfriend, Anck-Su-Namun, resurrected as Meela (Valesquez) are once again threatening to be resurrected.
This time the Imhotep-has-to-devour-the-poeple-who-opened-the-magaic-casket-to-become-human thing is dealt with far more quickly. he kidnaps young Alex O'Connell and dashes off to defeat the Scorpion King, so that he can rule the world. Much publicity for the movie centred on WWF's The Rock's movie debut as The Scorpion King. Indeed he is said to have impressed the makers so much that a prequel all about him is underway. He must have impressed them off-camera, though, because he is hardly in it. He appears in the impressive opening few minutes, then only re-appears at the end. At least, the character re-appears at the end. But he's computer-generated. And really quite badly rendered at that. The special effects throughout are typically impressive of any major Hollywood production, and it is quite hard to see how you can go wrong when you're designing and creating something using CGI, but this 2D-looking pixelly effort really disappoints. To be honest though, it is about the only aspect of that is disappointing.
Sommers has surpassed his original Mummy picture with a snappier script, and loads more action than last time. The familiarity with all the leading players means only a cursory re-introduction is necessary, and he can launch straight into some great set-pieces. There are gunfights and fisticuffs, coutesy of Rick O'Connell, cool swordplay from the Jedi-like Ardeth Bay (Fehr) and Evelyn O'Connell (Weisz) and Anck-Su-Namun, and the magical powers of the Mummy himself. All this makes for an extremely entertaining film, wihich it would be very difficult not to enjoy. Unfortunately this leads most people to feel they ought to justify their enjoyment by reiterating how silly and far-fetched it is, and reminding their friends to switch off their brains before they go in the multi-plex. After all, the studio have unaccounatably neglected to include a disclaimer reminding patrons that this is not based upon real events, so you wouldn't want anyone thinking you took it seriously or anything would you? Well I like it anyway. 9/10. |
