THE MUMMY RETURNS

By: Steve Biodrowski
Date: Monday, June 11, 2001

The '90s saw numerous classic movie monsters remade as effects- and/or star-filled extravaganzas, often with little resemblance to the originals and not always with great levels of success. 1992 gave us Bram Stoker's Dracula, a ridiculously romanticized take on the vampire myth that earned over $80-million. 1994 provided Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, a respectable but misguided effort that barely passed the $20-million mark. Also on view in '94 was Wolf, a dramatic, metaphoric take on the werewolf myth that landed in the $60-million range. And of course, who could forget 1998's travesty Godzilla, a film that managed the curious distinction of earning nearly $140-million in the U.S. while still being considered a monster-sized disappointment. Easily the biggest blockbuster of this group was Universal's official remake of The Mummy (1999), which took the 1932 classic and turned it into the basis for a Raiders of the Lost Ark-type action adventure for the whole family that sailed past $150-million. As befits success, this is the only film of the '90s monster revamps to spawn a sequel, THE MUMMY RETURNS.

There was a certain symmetry in the fact that the last and biggest monster revival of the '90s was a remake of The Mummy. After all, the Boris Karloff original was the unacknowledged inspiration for the film that launched the '90s remake trend, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Search the text of Stoker's novel, and you will not find one word about the Vampire Count finding the reincarnation of his lost true love, but this is a key plot element of Universal's first Mummy movie. Ironically enough, the original Mummy was more or less designed as a remake of Universal's Dracula, with the ancient Egyptian Prince standing in for the ancient Transylvanian Count, so it is perhaps fitting that the cross-pollinization ended up working in both directions.

In any case, the reincarnation theme was one of the few elements to survive intact into the 1999 version of The Mummy, but there was little attempt to romanticize Im-Ho-Tep (Arnold Vosloo) in the same way that Bram Stoker's Dracula romanticized Gary Oldman's Count. The Mummy was still looking for his lost love, but that engendered little sympathy as he unleashed Biblical-style plagues on our hapless heroes, all realized with bombastic overemphasis typical of effects-heavy studio summer blockbusters. Writer-director Stephen Sommers had previously shown a knack for making entertaining films with a sense of humor, but his best talent was only partially on view in this film, drowned in a deluge of computer-generated imagery. That wasn't enough to prevent the film from becoming a monster hit, thanks to the savvy commercial decision to de-emphasize the horror and play the film as a tongue-in-cheek adventure yarn. In other words, there was enough action to satisfy the teenage crowd, and Mom and Dad didn't think the film was too scary to bring the little kids.

THE MUMMY RETURNS recreates this formula to somewhat better effect: chase scenes, effects scenes, and comic relief alternate at a lightening pace, and the horror is enough to scare the small fry, but it probably won't be giving them any serious nightmares. This time out, the plot even has an interesting idea: an ancient evil warrior known as the Scorpion King (portrayed briefly by wrestler the Rock in the opening prologue) is about to come back to life, and Im-Ho-Tep's reincarnated love and acolytes revive him in order that he may battle the Scorpion King and usurp his army of demonic warriors, allowing him to rule the world. Our heroes get wind of the plan and set off in hot pursuit, hoping to put a stop to both evil entities.

We get to see more of Vosloo the actor (as opposed to Vosloo the CGI-effect) this time out, which is a bonus; it helps to make Im-Ho-Tep a more charismatic and threatening villain. He even gets a moment of sympathy near the enda perfectly realized expression of betrayal and despair when he sees that the love for which he has suffered so much is not nearly as strong as he had thought. Brendan Fraser is also in good form. I never really bought him as a solider of fortune in the previous film (he's just too clean cut), but in this film we learn that he is actually a soldier of god, destined to fight evil. It's an over-the-top, melodramatic element, but it fits well within the mummy mythology and suits the actor much better.

As for the CGIwell, it's still just CGI. You can do just about anything with it, but that doesn't mean it's convincing. The unreal, slightly cartoony quality remains evident, and every instance of the technique moves the film into fantasy territoryyou suspend disbelief because the effect is impressive or beautiful or even amazing, but you do have to suspend disbelief. Sometimes, you can barely do that. When the Scorpion King finally emerges for the climactic battle, it is not the Rock we see, but a computer-generated recreation of his head planted on top of the body of a giant scorpion. The effect looks like something out of a pretty decent videogame, but there is nothing remotely realistic about it.

Still, to be fair, the sequence is in some ways superior to its obvious model: the conclusion of Star Wars, Episode One: The Phantom Menace. As in that film, a three-way duel (in this case, two bad guys and one good guy) in an interior setting is intercut with a massive battle on an exterior setting. Thankfully, THE MUMMY RETURNS has no Jar-Jar Binks to ruin the battle, which avoids comic hijinx in favor conveying a band of human struggling against overwhelming odds against a supernatural army from the Land of the Dead. The only thing that's missing is Anakin Skywalker saving the dayalthough, come to think of it, MUMMY RETURNS does have a young moppet of approximately the same age. Fortunately, all this one has to do is bring his mother back from the dead!

One might wish that a few ideas were developed further, but the filmmakers obviously didn't want the plot to get in the way of stringing together a series of exciting set pieces. Still, I cannot help wishing that one of the heroes had raised the obvious question: In the final battle, if it turns out that we can defeat the Scorpion King only by joining forces with Im-Ho-Tep, should we accept that as the lesser of two evils (much as the Allied Powers joined with the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler in World War II)? Uneasy alliances like this can make for exciting storytelling (one of the most fun episodes of Dr. Who had the Time Lord teaming up with his arch-enemy The Master in order to prevent the destruction of the known universe), so it's too bad that Sommers script avoids this possibility in order to keep his heroes untainted and pure.

Even if it's not a great movie, MUMMY RETURNS is at least better than it's progenitor, and it does have its share of great moments. As far as summer movies go, it is breezy, lightweight entertainment, without a lot of patriotic propaganda, and that's a fact to be appreciated in a season that brings Pearl Harbor.