The Mummy Returns

That's right, not these guys again. I knew we would be in for it when The Mummy Returns was announced to be in production. The film turned out to be exactly what I expected. Boxoffice driven sequels always are. They always turn out to be inferior to the original.

The film is, as one of my good friends put it, "the antithesis of subtlety." I could think of no better way to describe the unenjoyable excessiveness of such a motion picture. You never see a small explosion, a slight wind gust, a gathering of a small band of troops, or a small herd of computerized deadly beetles. Rather, you see huge explosions that fill up the screen, torrential wind gusts slinging about buckets and buckets of sand, armies that stretch for several screen-lengths, and black beetles that never stop coming out of the ground. Never in the entire running time is there a moment of restraint. Everything is excessive and everything is exhausting.

Surely, The Mummy Returns might be one of the more draining movies I've been to in a while. There's only so much audio/visual overload one can take. Sommers' sequel sees that line, lights a match, and explodes itself right by. At the same time, Sommers also lowers our intelligence by never using his, adding insult to injury. The original film at least had moments of witty humor to keep the proceedings light-hearted. In this, almost every joke falls flat, and the film feels heavy. Very heavy.

Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weisz do what they can with a script that relies too heavily on special effects. Frasier, trying to show he's having as much fun as he did in the first Mummy film, unfortunately doesn't suceed. Weisz does a little better that in the previous, even learning some martial arts to perform what amounts to the best part in the film: a sai showdown between two deadly women. Still, the charismatic leads don't have much plausible chemistry together. I assume that it is because of the horrible dialogue in the scenes between them. The rest of the supporting cast is only so-so, with The Rock giving an uproariously short performance as the Scorpion King.

The special effects, on which the emphasis of the film is placed, leave much to be desired. They all look the same as the ones featured in the first film. They're not improved upon to any great extent. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that they're not as good. The scenery looks fake, the ship they're on is obviously a model with characters digitally inserted, and the mummies themselves don't move smoothly at all. Worst, however, is the Scorpion King. He looks so awful that it became hard to watch. Supposedly at the climax of the film, this fight features The Rock's face put onto a digitally created scorpion. The entire creature is mind bogglingly stupid looking, but its face is very poorly rendered. It was an attempt to look realistic, but instead it comes off as laughable.

The Mummy Returns is big, dumb, loud, and not fun. The climax is a pitiful exercise in action, the special effects are bad, and the production design is excessive. The antithesis of intelligence might be the most apt description.

On a scale of 1 to 10 sand storms : 3