As the woman begins to speak, a wind begins to whip about the crowd. There are a few murmurs and the narrator’s voice falters slightly, but she continues.
The last word of the sentence is spoken, the wind dies, the murmurs cease…
The stage explodes. Splinters of wood whip past your face and those nearest the front are thrown to the floor, the narrator lays slumped at the foot of a tree several feet from the remains of the stage.
As the dust kicked up by the detonation begins to clear, an arm reaches up out of the pile of blasted wood. The arm is ragged, all sinew and bone. Tatters of cloth are wrapped about it in places and you feel your heart begin to race.
Could it be? Is this the creature from the cinema? No…it’s different…similar yes…but different.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the figure of a man pulls himself out of the wreckage. The head is more skull than anything else, the empty eye sockets, horrid pits.
Groping about, the man…the thing…finds the still breathing body of one of the unfortunate people who had stood in the front row. The grasping fingers find what they seek, there is a terrible scream.
The thing looks up. The sockets are no longer empty.
So here we are, my third review of a mummy film, perhaps the random number generator likes the mummy sub genre…or maybe it’s just that about 20 of the 300 or so candidates are mummy films…OK it’s me, I like mummies! The question is, do I like this mummy film?
Let’s find out, this time I’m reviewing what is probably the most watched film featuring the classic monster, it’s Stephen Sommer’s 1999 epic, The Mummy.
Let’s get something out of the way. Is this actually a horror film? Well, it’s primarily an action adventure, but the fact it contains a mummy and is essentially a reboot of Universal’s mummy franchise means that I’m quite happy including it. Also, it has some pretty horrific things which happen in it, this is not quite child friendly. From a certificate point of view this was an odd one as it was cut slightly to get a 12 in the cinema then the uncut home version was a 15.
So the premise of the film concerns various adventurers, treasure hunters and archaeologists searching for a lost city in the deserts of Egypt and encountering an ancient malevolent mummy. I referred to the film as an epic, and that’s just how it feels, it’s honestly more like an Indiana Jones film than anything else, the soaring music, the action, the quippy dialogue, the genuine creepy moments, it’s all there.
Our main trio of characters are Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser), American, former member of the French Foreign Legion. Evelyn Carnahan, a British Egyptologist (Rachel Weisz), and her brother Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah)…who seems to be a bit of a playboy more than anything else.
The Chemistry between Brendan Fraser and and Rachel Weisz’s characters is fantastic. I know I mentioned it already but this is like the true 4th Indy film, more so than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ever was. Arnold Vosloo plays the titular creature with gravitas, as with Universal’s original 1932 film, this mummy is no simple shambling brute but a powerful, intelligent being more akin to a sorcerer. Whilst we’re talking actors I can’t forget that this film has it’s moments of hilarity, most notably when Kevin J. O’Connor or Omid Djalili are on screen. Honestly the whole cast is fantastic.
The locations are equally good. Sweeping desert vistas, dark foreboding tombs, opulent villas and all set in 1920’s colonial Egypt. This is all enhanced further by Jerry Goldsmith’s grand musical score which puts you in mind of the epics of earlier decades, totally suited to scale of this film.
Even the CGI effects manage to stand the test of time and mostly hold up, even by today’s standards, at the time they looked incredible. If I had to be nit picky I’d say the lighting looks a little off when we are seeing the animated mummy for the first time, but honestly for 1999 I should just shut the hell up, especially if we look at the Scorpion King from this film’s sequel which reeeeeallly doesn’t hold up…maybe we’ll get to that sometime.
From a horror point of view, what’s here to justify that label? Well as I mentioned this is part of Universal’s horror legacy, with The Mummy being one of the original ‘Universal Monsters’. There are plenty of creepy parts to this film, far more than in the 1932 original. We see animated corpses, flesh eating bugs, and one poor character has parts of his body removed. Under the action and romance, this film doesn’t forget its horror roots.
Having said this the film can get pretty goofy at times. This can somewhat take the sense of danger away at times, we don’t really feel that any of our main group are going to die. Plenty of characters do die in the film, but it’s certainly not going to be a surprise. If the film lacks anything it’s subtlety. It’s grand, it’s dramatic, but it’s not clever.
So is it any good? The truth is, I’ve watched this film more times than most in my collection, it’s a film that I can watch over and over without getting bored, it’s a special film to me and is a big reason why I have a love for Mummies. Universal knew what they were doing with this reboot, but I’m giving The Mummy 4 scarabs out of 5. I did debate giving this a 5, my enjoyment of the film ultimately carries the most weight here, I absolutely love it…but it really isn’t a 5. You could argue that if it had that subtlety and a greater sense of true danger then maybe it would ultimately be less enjoyable. Perhaps…perhaps it’s difficult for a film like this to attain such heights, is it trying to be too many things? This is still a very good film and one I’ll no doubt watch again and again in the future.
**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**
Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.
So I mentioned that the film has its creepy moments. For me the best of these is after the group we are following has survived their initial encounter with the resurrected mummy. They have returned to Cairo and one of the American trio who had his eyes and tongue removed by the mummy, which is already pretty nasty, is sat in a room with a mysterious masked figure and Beni. Beni tells him that Prince Imhotep thanks him for his hospitality…and his eyes…and his tongue… It’s a deliciously macabre way of revealing to the poor man that the figure before him, who he cannot even see, is the same mummy who took his body parts from him…and now more is needed. It’s the scenes like this which remind you of the film’s horror roots.
I could really pick any of the moments that O’Connell and Beni (Yes I know I used a surname and a first name but that’s how they’re generally referred to) are on screen together. The one me and my friend Josh seem to quote occasionally is just after the boat they are all travelling on has sunk and they wade to opposite shores of the river. The two of them are in a race to reach Hamunaptra, the hidden city of the dead, first. Beni looks across at O’Connell and shouts “Hey O’Connell, it looks to me like I’ve got all the horses!” and O’Connell quips back, “Hey Beni, looks to me like you’re on the wrong side of the river!” hey it doesn’t sound like much but once you’ve experienced the relationship these two have this scene is absolute gold.
Time to put this review to rest.
Summerisle 