The Mummy: embalmed with a grin
Here's the story: three-thousand odd years ago some Jafar-type priest / sorcerer got caught romancing the pharaoh's wife. Pretty typical stuff, but then the pharaoh turns out have gone to the same school as all the Bond-nemeses, the one where they ask why kill the guy when there are so many other imaginative ways to (not) get rid of him? To give the pharaoh some credit, though, the idea is that the punishment must fit the crime, and the crime here is measured by how fed up with all this the pharaoh is. As bad luck would have it, too, he's seriously fed up, meaning the only punishment that can assuage his anger is to have Imhotep (the Jafar-sorcerer; Arnold Vosloo) granted immortality and then summarily entombed for 'eternity' with some flesh-eating beetles. Of course, eternity only lasts about three-thousand years, or, until French Foreign Legionnaire Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) stumbles upon the burial, Hamunaptra, fabled city of wealth hid midst the shifting sands etc.
Too--and even though The Mummy's set in the early part of the 20th century--O'Connell has evidently not only seen all of the Indiana Joneses, but evidently committed them to memory, right down to proper attire. But he doesn't awaken Imhotep quite yet. That's plot point 1, and anyway, there's still some other characters to introduce, the most important of which is Evelyn, (Rachel Weisz) the fumbling, supermodel librarian. Close behind is her conniving brother Jonathan (John Hannah). Together they hire scrupleless O'Connell to take them to this lost city, which, while not quite as impressive as the Egypt of Stargate, is still pretty cool. Add to it a bevy of special effects miles ahead of any other movie and everything's set up for a walloping good time, the kind of ride the trailer promised.
And the mummy, wow. Gone are the days when his kind shuffled around with rigor mortis of the arms and a confused expression. Now the mummy's serious--fast, strong, gross, a definite improvement. He even has a voice, of the same calibre as, say, Wishmaster's, which was some top-notch low-bass. Unlike Wishmaster, however, The Mummy tries a little too hard to have it all--action, humor, horror. It's as if director Stephen Sommers took all the flashy elements from Indiana Jones and tripled their intensity, with the intention of tripling the Indiana Jones effect. Which would have been fine as concerns the action and the horror--you can never have enough of them; they're what we're paying for here. But the humor, the zingers written in practically every other line. With that kind of stuff, less tends to be more, y'know? Best to use them as a John McClane might, in the Diehard series. Or, perhaps, best to simply not write in a comic character for the kids. Beni (Kevin J. O'Conner, a long way from his Swann-role), the mewling, opportunistic (reluctant) side-kick of evil. He does have a couple of honestly good lines, but they're hardly worth all his throwaway ones. If one character can bring down a movie that otherwise has so much going fot it, then Beni does. If one character can save that same movie, however, look to the Encino Man himself, Brendan Fraser, fighting the mummy tooth and nail, doing his best Harrison Ford, the kind where we know who the real immortal is. Suffice it to say that if you were ever hungry enough for low-rent, high-stakes relic hunting that you tuned into the young Indiana Jones episodes, then The Mummy might be just light-hearted enough to satisfy.
(c) 1999 Stephen Graham Jones, http://www.cinemuck.com
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