he Mummy is the latest attempt by Universal Studios to resurrect a classic monster from its dusty film vaults. But instead of a remake, writer/director Stephen Sommers and his crew have put new flesh on the bare bones of the 1932 Boris Karloff original.
The film opens with computer-generated vistas of the Egyptian capital of Thebes, circa 1290 B.C. High priest Imhotep (Vosloo) harbors an illicit
love for the pharaoh's concubine Anck Su Namun--for which she dies and he is cursed and entombed alive, to suffer for eternity.
About 3,000 years later, in 1923 A.D., legionnaire Rick O'Connell (Fraser) and his cowardly pal Beni (O'Connor) are the only survivors of a raid on the ruins of Hamunaptra, the lost City of the Dead that's reputedly the resting place of the pharaoh's priceless treasure. In Cairo, O'Connell is rescued from prison by librarian Evelyn (Weisz), daughter of a famed Egyptologist, and her pickpocket brother Jonathan (Hannah) in order to find the treasure and a lost book of Egyptian magic.
Setting off on a steamer up the Nile, they encounter a second
treasure-hunting party led by Beni. That evening, both parties are attacked
by mysterious, black-clad bandits. After a furious gun battle, they escape,
and later caravan on camel into the Sahara. Deep in Hamunaptra's underground caverns, one group finds a book, the other the corpse of Imhotep. Evelyn's inadvertent reading of an
incantation awakens Imhotep and sets the curse in motion before they all
escape back to Cairo.
Soon after, as bandit leader Ardeth Bay warned, Imhotep has drained the life from those who found the book, brought down new plagues of locusts and man-eating scarab beetles, and loosed his powers in the form of lethal sandstorms and murderous mobs of walking dead. O'Connell and Jonathan pursue the priest back to Hamunaptra, where he has kidnapped Evelyn to sacrifice in order to resurrect his love, Anck Su Naman. If they can't wrap this mummy up, the world is "in serious trouble."
Rescue damsel, kill bad guy, save world
This new, computer-assisted, hyper-designed version of The Mummy owes as much to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Cleopatra as it does to the film it's based on. The movie's creators were trying to create a scary adventure laced with humor and romance while walking a fine line between funny and camp, all without undercutting the horror. In this they have had mixed results.
The film is handsome to look at, with larger-than-life renderings of
1920s Egypt and kinetic battle scenes, along with terrific costumes, sets and effects. The ancient Egyptian stuff is pleasantly lurid and overheated, and the various incarnations of Imhotep are amazing to watch.
The humor is often welcome, as it was in Raiders and the other
Indiana Jones movies. But just as often, it misfires. Big action sequences are capped by one-liners, and even the discovery of Imhotep's tomb is the punchline to a scene. In addition to pulling viewers out of the story, this funny business weakens the chemistry between Weisz (Chain Reaction) and her co-star Fraser (George of the Jungle), who otherwise handles his character with authority. Evelyn's romantic moment with O'Connell is played drunk, with the line, "What is a place like me doing in a girl like this?" At the moment they are supposed to kiss, she predictably passes out cold.
Elsewhere, the action scenes show off the film's impressive computer
effects: swarms of locusts, a hailstorm of fireballs, whirlwinds of sand and
armies of the dead. Though the film suffers from the rhythms of a videogame, at least the filmmakers have opted for scares and laughs instead of gross-outs.
These are not, however, enough to make up for the lack of
dramatic tension. The entire story is telegraphed from the beginning, with
key points repeated by various characters throughout the film. This is all
the more annoying because the audience has pretty much been briefed on
Imhotep's situation by an intrusive and unnecessary voice-over narration
during the prologue. Nothing's a real surprise here, though there's some
pleasure in the way this shaggy camel story careens toward the inevitable.
