La mummia - Il ritorno

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.

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 *****

When The Mummy hit theatres in 1999, critics everywhere panned it as being a poor man's Indiana Jones. While the two movies are about as similar as Dr. No is to GoldenEye (thankfully), I suppose comparisons between one non-stop adventure film and other are inevitable. In the end, what really counts when determining a film's quality is the level to which it can entertain. And if there is one thing The Mummy did well, it was entertain. Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and Arnold Vosloo were very well chosen for their roles.

The Mummy Returns is easy to see as being another sequel churned out to satiate the greedy money-machine that Hollywood has become, but it has a few things working for it. One thing that is immediately obvious is that the sequel was very much intended to be a film that could be enjoyed without ever having seen the original. The only references to the previous film are done to fill in the narrative gaps about who Imhotep is, and why he is the way he is. The addition of The Scorpion King was an interesting effort to give the film a new antagonist, but the lack of screentime didn't work well in this tangent's favour. Another tangent that could have been better developed was the rivalry between Imhotep's girlfriend and whatever her name was. Imhotep originally mistook Rachel Weisz's character for being his girlfriend reincarnated, so the use of a woman who looks exactly like her while creating this new tangent needed to be developed differently.

Most people won't give a damn about complex story tangents and will want to know if this film is entertaining. And it is entertaining, alright. There is barely a dull moment in the film's substantial running length, and Oded Fehr does a bang-up job of providing a Mad-Max-cum-Indiana-Jones hero. I want to know where they get those groovy costumes and tattoos from, they look quite nice. Anyway, when all is said and done, this is an eight out of ten film. A few badly constructed story details here and there, but some extremely entertaining action sequences make up for them. Don't listen to the nay-sayers. This is matinee-style material at its (almost) best. Get the DVD when it comes out, it will at least tide you over until George Lucas gets his head out of his proverbial and realises that the VHS era is well and truly over.

Both the original and this are great fun and completely likable. Of course the sequel does have flaws, the plot isn't quite as strong as the one in the original, the scorpion king was a bit of a disappointment(he could've been designed better) and again like the original it is overlong. But it does have a sense of unpretentious fun, and that is great to see. The visuals are very impressive, and the music score, this time by Alan Silvestri is very effective, though I do prefer the Goldsmith. Although he isn't given as much to do, Arnold Vosloo still impresses as Imhotep, who I admit I did find scary in the original, not so much here, but Vosloo's performance is great. The other performances are fine too, Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are both charming in the lead roles, and Patricia Velasquez is just beautiful beyond words as Meela Nais/Arnk Su Namun. Plus Freddie Boath is perfectly tolerable as Alexander, and John Hannah is fine too, same with Allun Armstrong of all people. All in all, a fun sequel, that shows that more of the same can actually work. The only other sequel that I have seen that is more of the same yet lives up exactly to the standard of its original is Home Alone 2:Lost in New York. 7/10 for Mummy Returns. Bethany Cox