La mummia - Il ritorno

The Mummy Returns is maybe a step above the first one. The action is non-stop, and it does manage, for the most part, to rouse the audience, or at least me. The good guys are likable. Brendan Fraser is where he belongs. Rachel Weisz is beautiful. John Hannah amuses as Jonathan, and Freddie Boath manages not to annoy as Alex, the kid. He's pretty good as a smart-mouthed brat. The bad guys are, for the most part, fun to hate. Im-Ho-Tep is a good villain. Maybe he isn't given enough to do here, but he's still cool. Patricia Valazquez is a real stunner as his love interst, Anck-Su-Namun. She's probably the best thing about the film. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was good as Lock Nah, the main henchman. Perhaps the weakest part of the film is the Rock as the Scorpion King. The narration during the film's prologue is not nearly as good as it would be if we were watching the story develop. The Scorpion King is basically a boring character. His computer-animated doppleganger at the film's climax is neat, but it would have been better if there were some feelings towards that character.

People who know their action flicks will notice that the Mummy Returns steals about every action scene from every action movie made in the past 20 years, quoting movies like Aliens, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park 2 (why? that movie was terrible), and especially Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, with which, if you remember, The Mummy I was competing with in the box office successfully in May of 1999. They don't try to hide any of it. They even make a jest at Spielberg with a shadow against the moon from ET and Amblin Entertainment. It's all in good fun. You shouldn't be too angry at the sloppy script. If you are going to be angry, the shoddy computer animation should be your target. Still, it's not bad.

This movie is pretty good, it delivers pretty much the same thing we got in the Firs movie. Some characters are more developed and some others more expanded, all the same, some others are reduced and we are introduced to new characters. The plot is good, not as good as the first movie, but still does a good job keeping you interested and entertained the whole time.

The sequel takes place 10 years later, when Rick O'Conell (Brendan Fraser) and Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) are now married, and have a son, Alex (Freddie Boath). Alex has been kidnaped by the bad guys, including the infamous Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) and his eternal love reincarnated (Patricia Velazques). Now it's just a matter of time for them to find Alex before it's too late for everybody...

The performances are pretty good, almost all of them. Brendan Fraser does a good job once again as the handsome Rick, he is strong, funny, charismatic, what else can you ask? Rachel Weisz role has been developed a lot more, she is no longer the clumsy egyptologist wanna-be, now she runs the British museum and is a mom; and she does a great job with that. John Hannah is also back as the useless Jonathan, this time not as funny as he used to be. Oded Fehr character has been expanded a lot, we get to see him a lot more in this movie. He did a good job as Ardeth. One more time, the winner of this movie is Arnold Vosloo as the villain; his performance was excellent! He manages to express all the emotions without opening his mouth! This guy has great acting skills, too bad not many movie producers/directors have noticed it. The Rock does his movie debut with this movie, he is the Scorpion King, the whole movie turns around him, even though he was in the movie for the first 5 minutes of it. Still he did a good job for his first time. Patricia Velazques was the only one who did a BAAAAD job. Her acting is awful! She is pretty and everything, but she really needs some acting classes.

The music once again is one of the key parts of this movie, it is really good, even though Jerry Goldsmith wasn't in charge of it. The direction is good too, just like in the first movie, and we get to see a lot more of special effects.

This movie is good, i really enjoyed it, I liked the first one better though, but that's just me. You might like this one better, so YOU MUST SEE THIS ONE! **** out of *****

Most people compare this sequel to the first movie 'The Mummy', which is a good thing of course, but I haven't seen the first one, so no comparisons from me.

So what can I tell you? Well, the movie isn't as bad as I expected. It's all to clear that the director's first thought wasn't about the script but about the many special effects, but i still quite liked the movie. What made this movie work for me was the humor. Normally this kind of movies takes itself much too serious, there is no place for any joke or funny situation at all. In The Mummy Returns this is different.

Thanks to the humor, this movie was very enjoyable, but it is of course the many special effects that make this movie what it is. Don't expect anything real: a mummy coming to life, sucking the life out of people, armies of mythological creatures... will of course never exist in reality, but it certainly was nice to see.

I guess it is best to qualify this movie as some excellent way to pass some boring hours on a cold and rainy afternoon. It's certainly not an intellectual movie, but I didn't mind about that when watching it. I give it a 6,5/10.

The Mummy Returns is a film that, I think, you need to see the first film of the saga because otherwise you don't understand some little details. That film is a film like Indiana Jones with the same plot and the same characters. But the kid is an exception. The cinema show us the kids like boys and girls insufferable, but Alex O'Conell is a boy that "pass more time in the museum that in house". One difference this film have respect Indiana Jone's films are the sobrenatural characters than appears like The Scorpión King or Imhotep. If you like Indiana Jones and Egyptian mithology, I recomend you that film

The success of "The Mummy" in 1999 surprised everyone, and on the day that it opened, Universal Studios greenlit another sequel. The original (the 1999 one) was a lot of fun because it mixed creepy scares with awesome action and goofy humor. The sequel does more or less the same thing, except that the action sequences come pretty much one after another from beginning to end.

Rick (Brendan Fraser) has married his love from the first film, Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), and the have a son, Alex (Freddy Boath). After finding the bracelet of the mythical Scorpion King, they're attacked by villains who are intent on raising Imhotep from the dead (again) so he can kill the Scorpion King and take over the world. Of course, it's up to Rick and Evelyn to stop them.

All the characters from the first film in the franchise are back, and they slide into their parts easily. Arnold Vosloo gets to do more with his character, and Patricia Velasquez (who has about 10 times as much screen time as she did in the first film) has a lot of fun acting like Jennifer Lopez's alter-ego. There are a few new characters as well, including young Freddie Boath, who is excellent as Alex. His screen appeal rivals Macauley Culkin at his best. Shaun Parkes is a much better source of comic relief than Kevin J. O'Connor (he's consistently funny, and the dialogue between him and Rick or Jonathan is hilarious). Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is suitably creepy as a new villain and Alun Armstrong is suitably kooky as the ringleader.

Stephen Sommers knows how to create an action movie. He creates real characters, not actors who are given different names, and sends them into action scene after action scene. It's a fun and exciting flick, and that's all it tries to be.