The Mummy (1999)

DIRECTOR: Stephen Sommers

CAST: Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Oded Fehr, Kevin J. O’Connor, Erick Avari, Jonathan Hyde, Omid Djalili, Bernard Fox, Patricia Velasquez

REVIEW:

While some hyperbolic reviews comparing it to Raiders of the Lost Ark are overstating the matter, Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy is a lot of fun as long as one doesn’t go in expecting much serious horror (the movie is too campy and semi-comedic to ever get very scary). It’s not the most substantial experience—-nor is it trying to be—-but it’s an ideal big summer diversion, with a lot of action, comedy, big splashy special effects, and a dollop of romance.

The movie is no more than the absolute loosest of “remakes” of the 1932 Boris Karloff film of the same name (Stephen Sommers justifiably gets sole screenwriting credit, borrowing no more than a character name and a plot element or two). We open with a nicely efficient prologue in ancient Egypt (1290 BC, to be precise), where the high priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) commits the cardinal sin of having an affair with the Pharaoh’s mistress Anck-su-namun (Patricia Velasquez). As his punishment, he is “mummified alive”, sealed inside a sarcophagus with a bunch of flesh-eating beetles, while portentous narration informs us that if he is ever to be awoken, he will be a plague upon the Earth. In 1923 Cairo, an American French Foreign Legionnaire named Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) has an unlikely encounter with a mousy librarian named Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) and her con man brother Jonathan (John Hannah), and the mismatched band teams up in an ill-advised expedition to find Hamunaptra, ominously known as “The City of the Dead”. En route, they get in a race with other fortune hunters seeking the rumored untold treasure buried beneath the sands while meanwhile, the descendants of the Pharaoh’s royal bodyguards who have guarded the city for 3,000 years (led by Oded Fehr’s Ardeth Bay), do not look kindly on the latest band of trespassers. Of course, after ill-advisedly trekking to the “City of the Dead”, and even more ill-advisedly reading from the “Book of the Dead” (don’t any of these names inspire any hesitation on the part of the characters?), our merry band inadvertently awakens the supernatural mummy Imhotep, who unleashes plagues upon Egypt (standard-issue Biblical-esque stuff like locusts, rivers running with blood, earthquakes, hordes of flies, and fireballs from the sky) and might also have designs on making Evelyn his immortal bride, something Evelyn is not onboard with. It’s up to Rick and company to, as he puts it, “rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world”.

Advance quotes from studio-friendly reviewers trumpeting The Mummy as being a thrill ride on par with Raiders of the Lost Ark are hyperbole. The movie is too cartoonish to generate much tension—-we never sense that any of the characters, at least the main ones, are in genuine danger (various more disposable side characters are not as lucky). The Mummy serves up plenty of action—-a battle scene pitting the French Foreign Legion against Ardeth Bay’s warriors, a bi-plane getting chased by a massive sandstorm with Imhotep’s face, and the climactic battle pitting our heroes against the Pharaoh’s resurrected bodyguards—-but while it’s all entertaining, it’s more fun than thrilling. The movie is also too campy and jokey to generate much horror, although there’s the icky moment or two, like a nifty shot of a flesh-eating scarab burrowing as a moving lump under someone’s skin (Imhotep also has the nasty habit of consuming the bodies of his enemies to reconstitute himself). Sommers’ script never takes its tongue very far out of its cheek without quite tipping the scales into full-blown self-parody.

The cast is well-chosen and in sync with the material. Brendan Fraser’s hunky adventurer Rick O’Connell is an obvious low-rent Indiana Jones (Fraser also reportedly performed a lot of his own stunts and sustained the injuries to prove it), and Rachel Weisz is earnest and adorable as the endearingly klutzy librarian Evy, who’s seemingly in way over her head (she has a delightful early scene where she knocks over one bookcase and the domino effect knocks over every single bookcase in the Museum of Antiquities). This isn’t the kind of movie where very much surprising happens, so it will come as no surprise when the requisite romance quota is met by our dashing legionnaire romancing the prim librarian, but Fraser and Weisz have enough playful chemistry to make a cute would-be couple. Also, lest one complain that Weisz is relegated too much to a damsel in distress, it’s actually Evy’s curiosity that drives the plot; Rick might be the hero, but he’s also technically just her muscle. John Hannah is mostly onhand to provide some oh-so-British snarky one-liners. Imhotep is played (once he reconstitutes himself enough to be a person instead of a CGI monster) by South African Arnold Vosloo, who seems to have mainly been cast for his exotic looks and broody glower. Oded Fehr is suitably hunky (one can imagine female viewers looking him up after walking out of the theater), and Kevin J. O’Connor supplies a weaselly sidekick.

The Mummy is not great cinema, or even great action-adventure, but it’s cheerful, good-natured and entertaining with an engaging and charismatic cast, combining adventure with parody, a dollop of romance, and a hint of horror. It might not be Indiana Jones, but for a silly campy riff thereof, and an unpretentiously pulpy retro adventure, it’s a whole lot of fun.

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