The Mummy Returns
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Grossing four times its $100 million budget, 2001's THE MUMMY RETURNS was that rare blockbuster sequel that outperformed the original hit.
It's easy to see why. Everyone we loved in the first adventure is back for more and everything feels bigger in scope and execution.
Other than the fact that it's about 15 minutes too long, THIS is how you deliver a follow up!
Brendan Fraser is in fine form as adventurer Rick O'Connell, still chasing Egyptian artifacts with his wife Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) and their young son Alex (Freddie Boath). It's been ten years since the first film, even though the films released two years apart. The filmmakers wanted Alex to be older, as he serves as a key part of the adventure.
When the mummified body of Imhotep (the terrific returning Arnold Vosloo) is sent to a London museum, it's only a matter of time before he becomes reanimated and sets his sights on raising his Army of the Dead.
The size and scale of the action sequences is excellent, including some opening flashbacks to Ancient Egypt that were very early examples of CGI that still hold up pretty well today!
A double decker bus chase through London with Imhotep's undead Army of Anubis, nasty canine-humanoid creatures who can run and jump with the best of them, is relentless fun.
Oded Fehr returns and nearly steals the movie as Ardeth Bay, the dashing and fierce leader of the Medjai, an ancient tribe of warriors dedicated to protecting the world from the resurrected High Priest Imhotep. Fehr is flawless casting, giving off killer screen presence and the same dangerous, dashing feel that Sean Connery conveyed in John Milius's "The Wind and the Lion". He trained for months on horseback, and it shows.
The hilarious John Hannah (Four Weddings and A Funeral) is back as Evelyn's bumbling brother Jonathan, whose lust for treasure manages to still get the family in plenty of predicaments.
The stunning Patricia Velasquez also returns as Anck-Su-Namun, Imhotep's forbidden love from thousands of years ago, still working to reunite their souls.
Writer/Director Stephen Sommers clearly loves these characters and actors and spins an entirely new adventure around them that's pure summer movie fun.
Fraser is so likeable that you are along for the ride, no matter what crazy plot twist occurs. Ancient curses are unleashed one after another, including Dwayne Johnson (still The Rock in 2001) as The Scorpion King. He's the only dodgy CGI in the film, but I remember his sequence slaying us all 25 years ago, before the digital creations spoiled us with photo realistic versions of anything you can imagine.
Alan Silvestri's score picks up right where Jerry Goldsmith's music for the original film left off. Goldsmith famously called the original movie "absolute shit" at a symphonic concert he performed it at, not knowing that Sommers was in the audience. He wasn't called back for the sequel.
Adrian Biddle (Aliens, V for Vendetta) shoots the entire film with a sweeping camera that rarely stops sharing widescreen vistas of incredible places and wild creatures.
I loved how everyone committed to up the ante from the hugely successful original film two years before. This is fast-paced, spectacular fun of the highest order.
Weisz and Velasquez trained for five months for their big fight scene. There are no doubles used!
The final battle in the desert features over 96,000 warriors! It looks like something out of a David Lean film.
Grossing $68 million at the box office its opening weekend in 2001, it was, at the time, the second biggest opening of all time and would remain the highest grossing "Mummy" film of the series.
I'm betting the new sequel in development for release in 2027/2028 will top that easily!
THE MUMMY RETURNS gets an A, still just as enjoyable as it was 25 summers ago!
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