The Mummy Out of Mothballs (The Mummy Returns (DVD))

Member Name: BizzyB

Product:	The Mummy Returns (DVD)
Date:	15/01/02 (109 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Same cast, Light-hearted, More Oded Fehr!

Disadvantages: Underworked storyline, Overworked special effects

Welcome to the sequel opinion!

For all those who sat through my first opinion you'll know the plot to date - I won the boxset of The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.

My first piece of advice to anyone planning on seeing The Mummy Returns, do see The Mummy first. It isn't wholly necessary but will help you get some of the running jokes and plots.

Once again the film revolves around Evie (Rachel Weisz) and O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) and their adventures whilst exploring the archeological delights of Egypt. The core cast remains the same as in The Mummy which is to its great advantage and helps the feeling of continuation.

The Plot:
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On opening we are witness to the raise and fall of The Scorpion King (played by the wrestling star The Rock), a tribal leader who sells his soul to the God Anubis and is rewarded with an Oasis in the desert but ends up forever his warrior leader.

It is now 1933, 10 years since Evie and O'Connell sent resurrected Imothep back to hell. However we soon see another group are on the search for Imothep's body to resurrect him once again - poor mummy, he's having more comebacks than Frank Sinatra.

The main forces in the group who look to resurrect him are Baltus Hafez, the curator of the British Museum who is seemingly driven by the desire to serve some powerful master of the afterlife, and Meela Nais who we soon find out is a physical resurrection of Imothep's love, Anck Su Namun. Where did she come from? Well the film doesn't tell us we just have to except this group of Imothep disciples as read.

Evie and O'Connell are now married with an 8 year old son, Alex who obviously doesn't have a traditional education as we meet them in the bowels of a pyramid. Here they find The Scorpion kings chest containing his magnificent bracelet. Despite the attempts of treasure hunters they return to London happy with the succe
ss of their expedition. And I don't mean when the Imothep appreciation society come to collect the bracelet along with machete wielding guards. No worse than that?Evie's brother John is 'entertaining' a young lady, a certain Miss Donna Air. Donna Air's appearance of, oh, 30 seconds is memorable possibly not for the right reasons. There she is done up like a 30's social butterfly and then she opens her mouth, 'bye 'eck is this not your 'ouse then?'.

The return to London also sees a rather interesting chase in a double decker bus, and this is one of my favourite uses of a double decker bus in a film because:
(a) The Spice Girls aren't on it
(b) Cliff Richard's not on it

Let's speed the synopsis up. It comes to light for Imothep to be become dark Overload of the world he must defeat the Scorpion King who is in some form of limbo in his oasis which isn't on the map but his bracelet holds the secret to the location. After Alex decides to try it on he becomes commodity of the day and so another adventure ensues which sees the O'Connells returning to Egypt to save their son who's been whisked off by the bad guys. I won't give any more away.

Weisz, Fraser and Hannah as the O'Connells and the toff twit brother-in-law provide the same comfortable performances as in The Mummy. They work well as an ensemble group and seem well at ease with their characters who once more have a little bit of Disney about them. The entire feeling of the film remains in that boys own adventure with a streak of black humour. Indeed this film moves even further away from the modern adventure comparisons to the likes of Indiana Jones and is more reminiscent of the Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts films of the 60s.

One welcome addition to the family is Freddie Boath who plays the O'Connell's son, Alex. A very competent young actor who works well with the adults in
the film, he has the rare quality of being a child actor and child character you don't want to send up to their room for 20 years.

And I will say there is the welcome return of Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bay the Medji warrior who with his Medji colleagues tries to protect the world from the evil of the past. Once again I will admit he was a welcome visual of the film. Indeed I would happily pitch a tent on a sand dune if he'd come in with a bar of Turkish Delight (this is a reference to television viewers over the age of 25 :o)

No doubt the makers of the film, once again directed by Stephen Sommers, decided to slightly up the drool content in this film. Brendan Fraser comes complete with his Hollywood look, Ardeth is dark and broody for those of us who like our film eye candy with a bit more character whilst Rachel Weisz and Patricia Valezquez (Meela/Anck Su Namun) thanks to past life sequences are more than lithe as they take part in demonstration combat in teeny-weeny itsy-bitsy Ancient Egyptian bikinis. Despite this the overall sexual content is still low and the film remains a cert 12 and is very unlikely to offend.

The great selling point of this film was the special effects and impressive they are though not flawless as we're coming to expect these days, which is probably more a failing in our need to have everything on a plate these days. Sequences of mummy warriors who defy gravity and the burning souls of hell are very good and have a fowing quality to them. Scenes of of Anubis's armies on the otherhand came across heavy and overworked. However my main gripe was the special effects were slightly overused if anything and it didn't retain some of the charm of the first film.

One important and interesting use of visuals was the change in setting for this film. The story was such that the main adventure takes us into a jungle like oasis in the desert so from the hot golden sands of the first film w
e are given a backdrop of lush greenery. So whilst the storyline may be hardly varied in essence the eye is fooled. Certain visual effects such as the flying ship, literally a boat with a hot air balloon lifting it, go back to my point of this film being like those old Sinbad movies. The flying ship also made me think of a poor copy of a Smashing Pumpkins video and you do expect Billy Coogan to pop, instead thousands of little mummified Billy Coogan's pop up in the jungle, you'll see what I mean!

As with the first film it is still in the class of a 'no-brainer' and I'm pleased! It remained light-hearted, childlike and amusing and a film that lets the brain cells just jellify for a moment. It is escapism in the old-fashioned sense. If you are in the mood to nitpick stay clear. At just over 2 hours I didn't feel it dragged but then my mind was ready to switch off and relax for the evening. However airtight the tomb there is no denying it's not as fresh as the first film but I'm still giving it four stars for being pure entertainment to me though I can see why for others its less pure and more puerile.

There is an easy rule of thumb - if you liked The Mummy you will enjoy The Mummy Returns but probably miss some of the simplistic charm of the first movie. If you hated The Mummy, this won't win you over so don't bother.

I have read that there are plans to do a Mummy III which would be a prequel charting The Scorpion King's life. Looking at the proposed cast list this reeks of being nothing more than a vehicle for The Rock, riding on the link with Mummy series. In my opinion this is the end of the road for The Mummy series, I cannot see them taking it any further.

Therefore I demand a campaign to have Oded Fehr in more films...(or a modern remake of the Turkish Delight advert - I have a camcorder, the neighbours have a tent and we could catch the train to Skeggie...).

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