My Movie Review on The Mummy Returns
Greetings to all you loyal readers and comrades out there.
Your friendly movie and TV show reporter is once again here with another movie review.
Today, following my previous review, I will be analyzing its direct sequel, “The Mummy Returns”.
Here’s the summary:
A few years after the events of the first film, an Egyptian cult lead by the nefarious Baltus Hafez, a warrior named Lock-Nah, and a woman named Meela Nais manage to use the Book of the Dead to intentionally resurrect Imhotep. With the help of his reviviers, this time, Imhotep plans to challenge the 5,000 year old Scorpion King, Mathayus, for control of an army bestowed to him by Egyptian god Anubis.
In a race against time, the McConnells, consisting of the now married Rick and Evelyn, their son Alex O’Connell, along with Jonathan Carnahan, and Ardeth Bay, must stop Imhotep from challenging the Scorpion King, especially before the latter and his army rise after a magical bracelet summons them back to earth and they conquer the world for themselves.
Along the way, Rick and Evelyn discover some shocking secrets about themselves, and there’s a surprising secret about Meela too.
Several of you might be wondering “Is this sequel any good?”; “Does it greatly succeed its predecessor?”
The answer to all two is this:
Yes! It does greatly succeed the original! And it is a great sequel!
Among the many reasons, the direction and story by Stephen Sommers was fantastic.
Returning to the director's chair and as the film's prime writer, Sommers was able to scoop out of his head a story that provided watchers a really great time, and his direction helped everything be captivating to a tee. Every camera shot made for this film gave immediate intrigue, and just like the first film, Sommers successfully helped translate the film as something far from a scare-your-pants-off film. He helped this film be one of action and adventure, while also providing some scares and thrills. The best part is that everything about the story tied together beautifully, and there were even a side dish of genuinely fun humor and emotional drama to accompany it.
The music by Alan Silvestri was magnificent, if I may add.
Silvestri is definitely no Jerry Goldsmith when it comes to composing for a Mummy movie, and I can’t help but wonder why Goldsmith didn’t compose for this film. However, Silvestri’s music score was able to wonderfully succeed and match Goldsmith’s work in the predecessor, even giving you the impression that you’re in the adventure yourself.
On the subject of the acting, casting, characters, and character development, I’m definitely gonna be starting with Dwayne Johnson and his character of the Scorpion King.
Johnson was perfect for the role he took on!
Despite his character not being very recurring, he gave excellent commitment to his role and was able to make a small role into something incredibly big. Every moment with him was absolutely gripping, and it was the perfect way to make a film debut too.
The acting from the rest of the cast was awesome too. Arnold Vosloo continues to make his character so entrancing, and Brendan Fraser totally killed it in his reprisal of Rick O’Connell. Among many surprises though, was Rachel Weisz also being able to stand tall with her performance as Evelyn in this film. I’m not saying she wasn’t great in the first film at all, really I'm not. What I am saying is that she topped her performance in the predecessor off with Oscar-worthy results.
Even more surprising than that, however, is the unexpecting background fleshing and character developments of Rick and Evelyn.
To start off, Rick was given a destiny that was amazing to begin with right when he got a newly found tattoo on his arm: to protect the world from undead beings as a “Warrior of God”. In this case, protect the world from mummies. And after some time, he learns to follow what he’s been tasked to do, which is great character development on my part.
Evelyn and Meela were also given some surprising backgrounds and fleshings. As it turned out, Evelyn was a reincarnation of an Egyptian princess called Nefertiri, who was the the Pharoah’s daughter and guardian of the Bracelet of Anubis. And Meela…she was a reincarnation of Anck-Su-Namun, the mistress of the Pharaoh, and Imhotep’s love interest. I was astounded by the sudden complexity of all two of those characters, especially Evelyn, because they became extremely three-dimensional.
In addition to the newly found character backgrounds, I also enjoyed the further exploration on the events of Imhotep and Anck-Su-Namun’s affair, like how the Pharoah’s bodyguards were alerted to what was happening.
As with the first film, the only thing I didn't enjoy was the usage of cussing. Especially from Alex, which particularly made me cringe a bit.
In the end, though, I can’t deny how fun this film was, even as a direct sequel to its predecessor.
So, I rate “The Mummy Returns” 4½ out of 5 stars.
