The Mummy - and - The Mummy Returns

Starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and John Hannah

This is not so much a scary movie as an action movie. It brings back the classic mummy coming to life story and adds lots of slapstick comedy and guns. The film recreates ancient egypt and tells the story of "The Mummy's" origin.

In the first movie, a British librarian on a dig in the Egyptian "city of the dead" reads from a cursed book, waking The Creature, a mummified, adulterous priest. Back from the afterlife, the mummy has destructive, supernatural powers. The rest of the film details the characters' struggle to return the mummy to his grave.

In the sequel, supporters of the mummy plot and succeed in waking The Creature again. Their aim is to share his power and to give him the added benefit of controlling the army of Anubis. Unfortunately, Rick and Evie's son puts on the bracelet of Anubis, making him a living map to the Oasis of Am Shere, the resting place of the Scorpion King. It's a race and then a battle to the finish with the fate of the world at stake.

These movies are just a lot of fun. They're summer blockbusters, which means that they're like roller coaster rides. Some people don't think that 60 seconds of fun is worth almost an hour of waiting in line.

There's a lot of impressive computer graphics, in the first one anyway. The sequel has lots of mediocre CG, and in the final scenes with the Scorpion King, there's a lot of horrible CG. In general, the acting isn't too shaby. Lots of laughs in this creepy action-comedy.

A funny thing - In The Mummy Returns, Anuck-Su-Namun , the Mummy's girlfriend, looks remarkably like Michael J. Fox when he plays a teenage girl.

I adore the characters in this movie! When I saw this movie for the first time, Brendan Fraser was the only actor I knew, and he was sort of frozen in "Encino Man" mode for me. So not only was it a treat to see him be an Indiana Jones, but to be introduced to so many other wonderful actors as well. Rachel Weisz has actually become one of my favorite actresses.

The plot of the first is implausible but followable. The second one is not quite so much so. Oh, it still has the implausible, but it's not nearly so well-crafted. There are so many hilarious moments in both, most of which are simply facial expressions. I don't find the computer graphics distracting until the end of the second movie, when the Scorpion King is almost painfully pathetic to watch. It would have been better if they had made him look like someone less famous and recognizeable than The Rock. (Although his opening scenes were fun to watch!)

I think action comedies are my favorite genre of movie, and The Mummy is probably on my list of top ten. The sequel didn't blow my skirt up as much, but still wasn't a bad way to spend a couple of hours.