The Mummy Storyline
If you're expecting bandaged-wrapped corpses and a lurching Boris Karloff-type villain, then you've come to the wrong movie. But if outrageous
effects, a hunky hero, and some hearty laughs are what you're looking for, the 1999 version of The Mummy is spectacularly good fun.
Yes, the critics called it "hokey," "cheesy," and "pallid." Well, the critics are unjust. Granted, the plot tends to stray, the acting is a bit of a stretch,
and the characters occasionally slip into cliché, but who cares? When that action gets going, hold tight--those two hours just fly by.
The premise of the movie isn't that far off from the original. Egyptologist and general mess Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) discovers a map to the lost city
of Hamunaptra, and so she hires rogue Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) to lead her there. Once there, Evelyn accidentally unlocks the tomb of
Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), a man who had been buried alive a couple of millennia ago with flesh-eating bugs as punishment for sleeping with the
pharaoh's girlfriend.
The ancient mummy is revived, and he is determined to bring his old love back to life, which of course means much mayhem (including the
unleashing of the 10 plagues) and human sacrifice. Despite the rather gory premise, this movie is fairly tame in terms of violence; most of the
magic and surprise come from the special effects, which are glorious to watch, although Imhotep, before being fully reconstituted, is, as one
explorer puts it, rather "juicy."
Return to Hamunaptra
