The Mummy Returns

Reviewed by: Suad Bejtovic, Bosnian Movie Critic

Directed by: Stephen Sommers

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, The Rock

It took me a while to see The Mummy, I just thought it’s not my kind of movie. Lots of shooting and running, some historic mumbo-jumbo and a few magic tricks – I have the Indiana Jones trilogy in my collection, thank you. However, despite obvious shortcomings, I was surprised by charm surrounding that movie, some sort of romantic quality that has woken up a little boy dreaming of pyramids. The Mummy Returns has that same charm, but has also the same obvious shortcomings.

As you learned in the previous movie, when you have The Book of the Dead and The Book of the Living, nobody is really dead, and nobody is really alive. So, our old friend Imhotep will find a new batch of disciples who want him back from the dead. This time, they are thinking, they will lead him to awaken The Scorpion King and the invincible Army of Anubis. Imhotep kills the Scorpion King and takes over the world with the Army of Anubis. Foolproof.

That Scorpion King is quite a character. He throws the smack down, he uses The People’s Elbow. Not only you can smell what he’s cooking, he’ll have his own movie later this year, a spin-off called, naturally, The Scorpion King. The real Rock graces us with his presence only in the opening segment of the movie. The final triple showdown is a bit anticlimactic, because of the horrible job done by graphic design department to the second incarnation of the King, as half-scorpion, half-Rock creature. That really caught me off guard, because the effects up to that point were really well done, even when you know they’re effects. Unfortunately, computerized Rock’s head on a scorpion body looks so bad, that not even the eyebrow can fool us. And to think that’s what we’ve been waiting for the whole movie…

So, if the destination is not that great, at least we have the journey, right? And The Mummy Returns delivers plenty of non-stop action, from the chase in the streets of London to a showdown with the forces of evil in the hidden oasis. Some of the enemies are tough as elephants and agile as cheetahs, others are quite easily discarded, but all of them serve the purpose – they look scary and fantastic.

Besides characters inherited from the original movie, from ridiculously clumsy Jonathan (John Hannah) to mysterious warrior Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr), we have a new one. Alex is the son of Rick and Evie and by the miracle of genetics he inherited twice the amount of obsession with Egyptian culture, from history to language, which will prove to be life saving in one of the final scenes. The kid is your typical 9-year old, still going through "my dad is going to kick your…" phase. We also have another new character, Anck-Su-Namun, who has a bone to pick with Evie for reasons we’ll find out soon enough, in 5000-year flashbacks.

Let’s go back to the charm of the movie for a little while. You cannot not notice some obvious quotes from various movies. Balloon crosses over Full Moon kind of like a bicycle in ET. Same balloon glides across the starry sky like an Imperial battleship in Star Wars. Outfit that not-yet-incarnated Imhotep wears for his first meeting with Alex resembles the one from Eyes Wide Shut. There’s a few more, which shows that The Mummy Returns doesn’t take itself seriously. Therefore, it doesn’t matter that the plot doesn’t work without the first movie, and it doesn’t matter that all the characters are one-dimensional. This is a summer movie that’s all about fun, and, if approached correctly, fun is what it delivers.

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