Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs

I do not have 3-D yet, so I had to settle for Blu-ray.

As I have implied this is a quickie overview of Egypt. It is claimed the same as the astonishing graphics. And they do a decent job of showing Egypt from different views at various times of day under different lighting. While you are enjoying the way that it looks this condensed version of history borrows from much longer programs and introduces us to major people that are still involved in Egyptology in the history of people that participated in Egyptology. The only thing that it lacks is a reading reference.

The disc does have however the standard DVD extras such as "Meet the Mummies" and a 22 minute "making of" Featurette. There was a quiz, but I did not take it.

Even if you already know the contents of the disk and even if you seem the longer programs this disc is still worth having for quick synopsis is worth re-watching periodically. I kept trying to figure out where the music came from it sounded like things from 10 Commandments Lawrence of Arabia and other various pictures. It turns out that it was originally written for this presentation.

Mummies: Secret of the Pharaohs is an exceptional Imax film. The cinematography is beautiful (Egypt in Imax, need I write more?!), the recreations convincing, and most importantly, the film is engrossing. Intertwining three separate but related stories, Mummies: SotP, explores the far and near past in a fresh fashion all the while keeping an eye on their payoff - these separate pasts' unexpected role in advancing our future (no revelations will be made here. It's worth it to see the film!)

Films should be entertaining, that is a given. When they are educational as well...well you just can't help but leave the theater thinking that your dollar went far further than you've come to expect, and that, in my book, is always a reason to recommend a film!

This feels like a history channel special. There were a few neat IMAX camera shots but not really enough to take advantage of the overly large screen.

There's some basic information about who the mummies most likely were, a view in on an experiment where some scientists make a modern mummy in order to try and figure out where to withdraw DNA from old mummies and some stuff on tomb robbers.

That's basically it. I'd advise seeing it if you're obsessed with mummies but otherwise there isn't too much you can get out of this movie.

It's an IMAX forty minute short meant for the museum science theaters. Visually, it has some of the epic grand vistas with recreations. It examines the art of mummification and the Egyptian afterlife. I don't care about the modern day mummification scientific experiment. It's not visually interesting and the results could be explained easily. It doesn't actually need those scenes. I'm more intrigued with Egypt locations even if they're recreations. I wouldn't mind if this could show the mummification process in more detail although the medical TV show aspect may be off-putting for little kids in museums. It's a good science short. The IMAX could be used to greater effect.

Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs (2007)

*** (out of 4)

Christopher Lee narrates this documentary, which was originally shown in IMAX theaters. I had to watch it at home but I can imagine how great some of the images must have looked on such a large format. With that said, the story being told here was rather interesting as the documentary takes a look at ancient Egyptian history and the various import discoveries throughout the years. These discovers are of course traced back to tomb robbing, which was a major source of money back in the day. The main focus is on the biggest discovery, which led to various founders of Egypt being discovered.

The other focus of this documentary is on getting DNA from mummies in hopes that one day we can tell what people died of. For the most part I found this to be an entertaining documentary. I watched it with my six-year-old son who loves this subject and he was slightly entertained by it, although he wasn't overly interested in the DNA stuff. There are some nice images of various mummies that have been discovered over the years as well as some nice information of their discovery. Lee certainly does a very good job with the narration with that terrific voice of his.