My Movie Review on The Mummy (1999)
Greetings, friends.
This is your friendly movie & TV show reporter with a new review.
Today, I’ll be giving you all an analysis of “The Mummy”. The film from 1999 in case anyone’s wondering.
Here's the rundown of it:
In 1926, a trio of intrepid explorers ventures in Egypt in order to locate the lost city of Hamunaptra, alias the City of the Dead. The team consists of American adventurer Rick O'Connell, English librarian Evelyn Carnahan, and her older brother Jonathan. Along the way, they find themselves in competition against a group of treasure hunters, consisting of Isaac Henderson, David Daniels, Bernard Burns, and Dr. Allen Chamberlain, who are also being lead by the greedy and cowardly Ben Gabor.
However, during their exploration, the teams stumble upon an ancient tomb, and thanks to Henderson, Daniels, Burns, and Chamberlain finding a book called the Book of the Dead, as well as Evelyn reading a page of it outloud, they awaken a 3,000 year old mummy called Imhotep, who was a priest cursed for having an affair with the mistress of a pharaoh, as well as assassinating the Pharoah.
With the world in chaos, Rick, Evelyn, and Johnathan, along with some unexpected allies, must work together to fix the mistake they made, before Imhotep’s newly found powers destroy the world and before he revived the love of his life.
I have to admit, this movie was something that caught me by surprise, because I didn’t think this film was something for me.
For instance, the direction and screenplay by Stephen Sommers, and the story by him, Kevin Jarre, and Lloyd Fonvielle, were fantastic.
Among the things I enjoyed was that the film had one of the most balanced tones in cinematic history, because it managed to be more than just a mere horror film. The humor was hysterical to watch, in large part because the jokes and comedic-timings carried an innocence that provided welcoming relief from the tension-filled aspects; the dramatic and emotional moments were also very soul-tugging, because they helped the film be something with heart. Plus, the film's action & adventure aspects were genuinely exhilarating and fun, and there were tons of great scares that should easily please horror fans.
One thing's for sure, it's hard to deny that Sommers was basically the heart and soul behind this project. I think, in a great many ways, horror films are merely made with the intention of scaring the pants off of others. Sommers, however, managed to direct this film to where scaring someone isn’t the only goal, and it takes a brilliant director to be able to do just that.
The acting, casting, and characters were top-of-the-line amazing as well. The people I was wowed by in particular were Brendon Fraser and Arnold Vosloo, with their portrayals and characters of O’Connell and Imhotep.
Fraser gave an amazing adventurer-feel to his character, and he also brought an excellent comedic-feel to O’Connell too. The best part about it was that he perfectly balanced his character on all two feels to where he was absolutely fun and right for the part, even setting himself apart from Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones (the series which I have yet to review, sorry about that).
Arnold Vosloo is likewise someone whom I thought stood tall among the others. The way he was able to portray his character as an Egyptian was so entrancing to me, particularly because his speaking in the Egyptian language was so fluent and accurate. The way he also portrayed the character as a mummy, even under all of the CGI & makeup applied onto him, made the character so realistic and full of depth.
To top it all off, every character developed amazingly throughout the movie. The ones who developed the most were definitely Rick, Evelyn, and Imhotep.
The musical score done by Jerry Goldsmith was brilliant, if I may add.
Goldsmith was not only able to creatively help the movie have thrills and suspense with his music, but he also composed his score to where you’d feel like you’re involved in the adventure, and where you’re actually in Egypt and the rest of the film’s surroundings.
The one thing I felt saddened by was that there were some cuss words in this movie that spoiled things for me. Especially some certain uses of the Lord's name in vain.
In conclusion, though, the film was exciting to watch, and I suddenly can’t wait to see “The Mummy Returns” at some point.
So, I rate “The Mummy (1999)” a solid 4½ out of 5 stars.
