The Mummy Returns Review
By Joe Lozito
See Ya Pharaoh
I don't think its right to critique the acting in a Hollywood blockbuster such as "The Mummy Returns", since the performers aren't called on to do much except run from one computer-generated beastie to another. Suffice it to say that the actors in this sequel to 1999's "The Mummy" do their jobs adequately. Brendan Fraser, returning as adventurer Rick O'Connell, seems to take some time to warm up to the one-liners that pass for dialogue. Perhaps he misses the old days of "Gods and Monsters" when he was actually called on to act. The best thing I can say about Rachel Weisz is that her plucky Eve Carnahan is slightly less annoying that she was in the first film. Also returning from the original film are Arnold Vosloo (who resurrects his glare as Imhotep), Oded Fehr (who portends his way through the film as Ardeth Bay) and John Hannah, who deserves an Oscar for Most Drawn-out One-joke Character as Rick's money-hungry brother-in-law.
Typically, inserting a child into a sequel is a pale attempt at making the film less threatening for a younger audience while increasing the stakes for the main characters without having to think of an actual plot. In "The Mummy Returns", Freddie Boath, as Alex O'Connell, also serves to prove that action heroes make terrible parents. From the very first scene Alex is left alone while his parents go off raiding a tomb. What passes for love scenes between Mr. Fraser and Ms. Weisz are the lowest points of the film. It's odd that these two fail to generate much electricity together, but it's hardly important in a film like that.
No, what's really important are the special effects. And in this department, "The Mummy Returns" delivers. Again and again. Writer-Director Stephen Sommers keeps the action coming with flagrant disregard not only for logic, but for the laws of physics themselves. In this film, characters are able to outrun the sunrise (because, you see, it rises as a perfect line on the ground) and fall backward while still retaining enough force to thrust a spear forward.
Mr. Sommers' "Mummy" returns to the formula of his first film verbatim. Not only does he plagiarize the highlights of 1999's original (the face in the sand, the domino-style bookcases) he replaces dialogue with enough talk of destiny to make George Lucas himself dizzy. It seems that each character plays a part in some plan or another that was foretold in the year of The Flood, or something. However, as Oded Fehr points out, "only the journey is written, not the destination". As Mr. Fraser's Rick replies, "how convenient."
It feels like Mr. Sommers, deep down, would like to emulate epics like "Lawrence of Arabia". But his desert vistas and armies that stretch to the horizon are so obviously computer-generated that they lack any sense of awe. For all the technological achievement, they - much like the film - feel quite ordinary.