The Mummy

There's a couple of things about this movie that made it so I never actually saw it. The first reason was this movie is marketed as a little bit of a scary movie. Its not, but there are a couple of times in this movie where I thought the genre changed from an action adventure movie, to a horror movie. Since this movie has come out, the visual effects look pretty out of date, but back in the day these effects were state of the art and it was some kind of scary imagery, especially when I was young.

The other reason is Brendan Fraser.

Brendan Fraser is an actor who I only saw in one movie when I was younger and that was George of the Jungle. George of the Jungle is a movie that I definitely enjoyed as a kid but it kind of ruined Brendan Fraser for me.

Forever, I will always know Brendan Fraser as the guy who played George of the Jungle, and I have a really hard time imagining him as anything else.

So when he was cast in the Mummy, a movie that many could compare to a 90s version of Indiana Jones, it was very difficult for me to really see him as anything else than George of the Jungle and The Mummy didn't really seem that appealing.

Now, since I have seen Fraser in other things and I have since actually seen The Mummy and I actually am interested in seeing Brendan Fraser in more things. But at the time, I just wasn't interested in this movie because all I saw was George from George of the Jungle. Maybe its not a fair thing to think about as this guy has done more than those two movies, but I still will always see him as that role, and it takes me a while to think of anything else.

So now that I've seen The Mummy, what is it about?

The Mummy starts sharing the story of an ancient Egyptian priest (played by Arnold Vosloo) who falls in love with the mistress of the Pharoah.

The two plot an assassination attempt on the Pharoah but eventually his lover his killed and he is mummified and killed slowly. He is put under a curse and is eaten alive in his coffin.

The weird part is the curse that they put him on almost intends for him to be resurrected. They say that its this horrible curse that they would never wish on any man because of the incredible pain he experiences, but they say because of this curse, if he is ever resurrected he’ll be invincible. I mean I can understand that they really wanted him to suffer, but why put the curse on him if there is such a danger on him getting out?

And of course, you know he does.

We are then introduced to Rick O’Connell (played by Brendan Fraser). He’s a… well honestly I’m not totally sure what he is. I guess he’s some kind of treasure hunter or a mercenary. He only seems to have information on the mummy and his hidden tomb with a trove of treasure because he stumbles upon it in the beginning.

He teams up with a clumsy archeologist Evelyn (played by Rachael Weitz) and her comic relief brother (played by John Hannah). Evelyn is studying ancient Egyptian runes and they find a map and a key to an ancient Egyptian Tomb. The tomb in the city O’Connell just happens to have stumbled upon 3 years earlier.

The first 30 minutes of this movie could have been a movie in itself because it’s basically a short Indiana Jones movie. They’re making their way to the ancient city; they’re attacked by mysterious

organizations trying to protect the secrets of the city. There are a lot of elements that I had a lot of fun with in the beginning of this movie. That’s not to say the rest of the movie is bad, I just enjoyed the adventure and Indiana Jones-like parts in this movie more than the rest of it.

They make it to the ancient city, competing against a group of Americans trying to get to the treasure first, and then things get a little weird.

Like I said before, it’s pretty obvious that Imhotep, that Egyptian priest from the beginning is going to get woken up and he is, The Mummy. And even leading up to his resurrection, there’s a lot of fun Indiana Jones adventure that goes on in between. But I remember very clearly the moment when this movie suddenly turned into a horror film. Mystical things start to happen and it just had a distinct feeling of a horror film instead of an adventure film.

The other part about this shift in tone is that this movie came out in the 90’s when studios started utilizing CGI more and more. The Mummy had to have been a movie that took a lot of risks at the time to create some scary imagery with CGI. But the further and further away from the 90s we get, the more and more the CGI effects just look cheap and silly.

The problem is, it’s a little bit obvious that a little bit more effort was put into scary shots and horror-like ambiance rather than setting up the adventure feeling like you would see in an Indiana Jones movie.

Now I don’t want to say that this movie should have just copied Indiana Jones, all I’m saying is that this movie was doing a good job at the beginning being a straight up adventure film and there’s a specific point in the movie where its no longer an adventure and instead turned into a game of cat and mouse with certain characters just getting picked off one by one by the Mummy. It was kind of distracting the drastic shift, that when the movie tried to go back to the adventure it was kind of too little too late.

So the first note that I would make for this movie is that they should have stuck with the adventure feel and dropped the horror cat and mouse game. We’re in ancient Egypt with an archeologist and a gun wielding mercenary, we might as well use them.

Speaking of the characters, how is Brendan Fraser?

He’s good. I’m gonna be honest he’s got a really dumb face that yes, I can’t separate from George of the Jungle. However, he does do a good job at creating your pretty typical cocky swashbuckling hero. He’s likable and despite my better judgment, he does a pretty good job. I had a lot of fun with him as the hero and I wanted him to succeed.

The same can be said Rachael Weitz as Evelyn. You have to remember that it’s the 90s and female characters are not exactly written that well. She’s very clumsy and very fallable as a protagonist. While she has her moments where she is a competent hero, there are just too many conventions that she falls into as the damsel in distress, and at a certain point, that’s really all she becomes. Now I’m not saying that she should have grabbed a shotgun and started blasting mummies like Egyptian Ripley, that wouldn’t have lined up with her character. I’m just saying there are parts where she’s just useless when she has proven to be very competent in earlier situations. She devolves into arm candy and that’s a shame because she’s a funny and likeable character.

And that leads me to her relationship with O’Connell. I don’t know if they fix this in the sequels but the only real romantic chemistry these two have is in their weird “do me” stares that they give each other throughout the movie when they’re not being chased by zombies. Their romance is really not written that well and there doesn’t seem to be too much the two of them have in common besides the part where they share a kiss at the beginning. Its your typical mismatch where she’s very primp and proper and British and he’s your handsome, cocky, American rogue. Of course they could never end up together until they do. That trope had been used so many times before this movie and its been used plenty of times since that it’s a little tiring. If you’re looking for a recent comparison, think Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard in Jurassic World. While I didn’t hate that couple as much as a lot of people did when Jurassic World came out, its pretty much the same set up. He’s the rugged rogue, she’s the business woman who’s very organized. You get the picture.

The other characters are fun in their own way but if they’re not the expendable people who are just fodder for the mummy, they’re not exactly the most necessary characters. Evelyn’s brother for example. He’s funny and he’s a good addition to the movie but I don’t think he necessarily needed to be in the film for a particular reason. And that could not be very more true with the character of Ardeth Bay (played by Oded Fehr). (I actually had to look up what that guys name actually was,

that's how in significant of a character he was. The funny thing about this character is that he starts out as an antagonist as he is part of the organization tasked to guard Imhotep. However, they really don’t do a good job and when Imhotep is resurrected, he just kind of joins them and everything in the beginning kind of becomes of little consequence. I mean I know the reason he was brought in and that was to get a cool character who looks awesome with a machine gun (even though that part didn’t make any sense because he wasn’t feeding that machine gun any rounds and would have spent what was in that can very, very quickly.

And then of course you need to talk about Arnold Vasloo as The Mummy Imhotep. And he’s good. If you’ve seen Vasloo in anything, you’ll know that he’s not exactly a Shakesperian actor. His main purpose in this movie was to provide an intimidating figure who looked Egyptian. And he does a good job. He honestly doesn’t have too many lines and even fewer are actually in English. But with the special effects, he’s not really brought in for his acting.

The Mummy is a fun movie and I’m really looking forward to watching the sequels because while the first film got muddled with a horror tone, I get the feeling that it will focus more on the adventuring in the future due to the strength of those scenes. But an overall review of this film is that it’s a fun adventure that got muddled with some horror tropes and dated CGI effects. The characters are fun if not a little bit predictable and stereotypes. I’m looking forward to moving forward in The Mummy franchise.

But what do you think of The Mummy? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So... they made a Mummy cartoon series... Not totally sure why but here's the intro to that. Enjoy!