THE MUMMY (1999)
Kind of dry, but wraps up nicely
It's been ten years since we've had an honest-to-God Indiana Jones movie. The lengthy wait for a fourth is largely because of everybody's insistence that Sean Connery return as Indy's father, and (for some reason) Kevin Costner show up as his never-before-mentioned brother. Now it's FIVE huge-salary guys who have to agree on a script, who have to find time in their schedules, and yet another character to suck valuable screen time away from the people we want to see. That this film has yet to be made (latest word is we'll see it 'round 2005) is probably for the best; look what happened when this happened to the Batman movies.
Being that it's been so long and is going to be even longer, I'd say that it's high time we had an honest-to-God Indiana Jones ripoff. The Mummy is just such a ripoff, and it ain't half bad.
Brendan Fraser stars as O'Connell, an Indy-type (with maybe a little less grey-matter) who gets saved from hanging by telling an English Egyptologist (Rachel Wiesz) that he's been to the lost city of Humenoptera, and he can show her where it is. What they find there, of course, is a mummy. Not just one, though - a whole buncha mummies! They're led by Imhotep, who's sucking the life-force out of the guys who freed him from his slumber in order to re-assemble himself. Needless to say, next stop - the world! With some Biblical plagues along the way.
(whether Humenoptera has anything to do with Hymenoptera, the taxonomical classification denoting wasps and hornets, I don't know)
Fraser is engaging and charismatic, but the guy just can't handle a gun. Really, not once did he look like he really meant it when he was shooting that thing. Wiesz could coast by on her adorable accent alone, but she exhibits quite a bit of the charm which made Chain Reaction endurable. The supporting cast is mostly quite good, particularly Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep (you might remember him as the non-Henriksen half of the ambiguously gay duo in Hard Target), and Oded Fehr as the leader of an ancient order dedicated to keeping Imhotep, uh, under wraps. Kevin J. O'Connor, however, sucks mightily as the shifty Beni who leads a rival team of American treasure hunters to the lost city. (to his credit, he gets one scene where he uses every religious icon he's carrying - and that's a lot, from a lot of different faiths - to ward off Imhotep, which is pretty funny)
Great effects and sets throughout, with an opening view of Thebes (I think it was Thebes) that's as spectacular as the one we saw in Prince Of Egypt. Imhotep appears for much of the picture as a shambling, desiccated carcass who explodes hilariously into a cloud of sand every time there's a cat nearby. We're also given killer beetle hordes, fire from the sky, dust storms that eat planes...yeah, I'd say that this movie ranks pretty well in the eye-candy department.
And the movie's ridiculousness is rather endearing as well. It's fun to watch O'Connell take up a sword (made of gold, hence kind of useless) and do battle with topnotch mummy soldiers, kicking all their asses (where he learned how to handle a sword, I don't know). The behavior of the hordes of possessed Arabs his hilarious - they're kept at bay by having a torch waved at them, even though half of them are carrying torches themselves. When they're not chanting "Imhotep...Imhotep..." they're trying to kill somebody, but can be distracted if you try to lead them on another chant. And while this movie's been dinged for its use of Arab stereotypes, one must realize that the Americans (and indeed the Brits) are stereotypes too, and the American ones are probably the silliest.
The Mummy was written and directed by Stephen Sommers, who previously graced us with Deep Rising. This isn't quite as successful as DR, for a number of reasons. One is O'Connor - he was annoying half the time in DR, but it's all the time here. It's way too long, at 124 minutes. And so much about the movie is just unclear. What is it about Humenoptera that makes it "hidden"? The scene where it's "found" made no sense to me at all. Just what Imhotep's plans are beyond re-awakening his bride seem pretty vague. And what's with those Biblical plagues - did they just stop all of a sudden? Why?
Still, it's all quite a fun ride, and I'd certainly recommend it as an enjoyable time-killer. Fraser claims he's interested in remaking The Cat People next. Is he that anxious to get away from his oft-typecast "loveable doofus out of his element" role that he's willing to typecast himself in the "horror classic updating guy" role?