What a rush!!! This was more fun then a roller coaster ride at midnight on Halloween. While very much it’s own movie The Mummy is in the same fast paced, high humor vein as Raiders of the Lost Ark. And like Raiders it hits the ground running and picks up speed from there. Brendan Fraser, an actor who has well earned his steady rise to stardom, plays Rick O’Connell; a Foreign Legionnaire who once stumbled across the location of the cursed, but treasure filled ruins of the city Hamunaptra. In exchange for keeping him from a hangman’s noose he leads a beautiful archeologist, Evelyn; her slightly unscrupulous, but quick witted brother, Jonathan and O’Connell’s former jailer to the site of this city while being dogged by an ancient cult dedicated to keeping Hamunaptra hidden. Once there, they are joined by a rival group of archeologists and together the two groups inadvertently release the mummified wizard Imhotep. Imhotep, a man who has definitely been wrapped just a little too tight, has three goals: kill those responsible for his freedom in order to regain all his power; revive his long dead ancient lover and, oh yeah, take over the world.There are simply no major flaws to this movie. The special effects in the Mummy are exquisite, but not distracting enough to overpower the story itself. The characters are fun and even the supporting ones; such as Evelyn’s brother Jonathan (especially well played by John Hannah), are interesting and multi-dimensional. In fact, lesser adventure movies have contained primary characters that were not as well thought out as The Mummy’s supporting characters. The humor is quick witted and sharp with one hilarious, smart aleck one liner following another. There are a few nits that can be picked, but not many and nothing too distracting. For example, after discovering that the Mummy’s weakness is a common, easily obtainable object, why didn’t the Mummy’s potential victims surround themselves with these objects? Secondly, while I could accept O’Connell holding his own against the shambling mummies Imhotep first calls up, it stretched credibility a bit when he held his own, sword to sword, against a later horde of high powered mummies who were crawling on walls and leaping around like Spider-Man on steroids. But these were too minor to detract from the sheer fun of this movie.
I can hardly wait for the inevitable sequel. Would anyone besides me like to see how O’Connell would do against The Creature From The Black Lagoon? But in the meantime, while you're waiting for O'Connell's next adventure, don't forget to call your Mummy.
Average Grade: A+
