I’ve see this film numerous times in the last 10 years, but this is the first time I’ve sat down to watch it as a critic-and I felt a little like a microcosm of the critic split. More than a few critics wrote that the film felt like a “ recycling of the 1999 original.” Ebert himself tipped the other way on this one, writing that the film abandons the characters and “the plot only as a clothesline for special effects and action sequences.” But others enjoyed the film, like USA Today critic Susan Wloszczyna, who admitted the films faults, but posited that “it’s easy to overlook plot holes when your eyes are being boggled” by the special effects, “high-camp” and “cheesy Saturday-matinee style of Cecil B. But like The Mummy, critics were divided pretty much down the middle, and this film garnered a 47% rating at Rotten Tomatoes (seven points lower than its predecessor). The Mummy Returns was even more financially successful than its popular and modestly budgeted original. When the bracelet inadvertently attaches itself to the youngest O’Connell’s wrist and the bad guys (who’ve recently resurrected Imotep) kidnap the boy, Evie and Rick begin a grand trek across Egypt to save him-and the world-from the Mummy. They come home from their most recent adventure-during which Evie has begun to experience odd flashbacks suggesting she was at one time the daughter of the very Pharaoh that was murdered at the hands of Anck-Su-Namun (Patricia Velasquez) and the High Priest Imotep (Arnold Vosloo) in the first film-with a bracelet that’s the key to unlocking an unholy army from the underworld.
THE MUMMY MOVIE 2001 FULL
As promised, it was crammed full of, “You know, the usual,” as adventurer Rick O’Connell puts it: “Mummies, pygmies, big bugs.” It picks up nine years after the first, with Rick (Brendan Fraser) and former librarian Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) now married and raising their young son Alex (Freddie Boath) while treasure hunting in Egypt. So, you can understand why I was one of the first in line two years later to see The Mummy Returns (2001). Indeed, I treasured The Mummy so much I bought the original film poster, which now hangs on a wall sandwiched between The Fellowship of the Ring and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. There is a little immaturity stuck away in the crannies of even the most judicious of us, and we should treasure it. I cannot argue for the script, the direction, the acting or even the mummy, but I can say that I was not bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased.
I am, as Roger Ebert puts it in his review, “cheered by nearly every minute of it:” The Mummy (1999) is one of my favorite films of all time.
A decade later, he went looking for someone to stand up for the Stephen Sommers franchise. Ten years ago, Ken called The Mummy Returns the worst movie of 2001.
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