THE MUMMY (1999) Secretly Brilliant?

When I was a wee child of 5, I was developing my sentience and motor skills nicely. Some of my earliest memories began at this age, including glimpses of the first films that I can remember. One film that stands out above all is the 1999 Stephen Sommers film: The Mummy.

The pioneers of the horror genre, Universal, have tried to re-spark these behemoth franchises every few decades since their conception in the 1930’s. Recently, these efforts have proven fruitless, but in 1999, they really had something.

Now sitting at twenty years old, The Mummy is a re-telling of the old Karl Freund 1932 classic of the same name starring the immortal Boris Karloff as the titular character.

Boris Karloff's immortal Imhotep

Redone and somewhat modernized, The Mummy stars a cast of actors like Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, and Arnold Vosloo. In this adaptation, the time period relatively stays the same as the original incarnation, and the script follows the same basic plotline: something is stolen from a Mummy’s tomb, The Mummy Imhotep (Vosloo) tries to get it back, and the characters of Rick (Fraser), Evelyn (Weisz), and Jonathan (Hannah) get twisted into it. In the process, Imhotep attempts to use the character Evelyn to bring back his lost love. Imhotep releases the ten plagues back onto Egypt, and after a large battle involving mummified priests, Evelyn is saved, riding off into the sunset with Rick atop camels with Egyptian treasure (right after the rat-mink Beni (Kevin J. O’Connor) suffers an all-too creepy fate).

The story itself is arguable, as well as some of the scene-chewing performances, but the focus of this film is to keep an audience entertained, which it greatly succeeds. The pacing of the film is action-packed, with an array of practical effects to industry-standard CGI of the time. Rewatching this film every other year, I never find myself bored. The Mummy accomplished everything that it needed to accomplish on a mainstream level: providing a fun movie-going experience. If you’re around to pick apart the script and direction, you’ll find this film at a very mediocre rating, as the story attempts to try and justify non-coherence with distracting visuals and “because movie” reasons. However if you are looking for a film that will both ironically and unironically make you laugh, whilst giving you the sensation of what it must’ve been like to see a film way back in its magical, developmental days, look no further. The Mummy provides a roller coaster ride of emotions, horror, and cheesily fun scenes.

lol

Universal recently attempted to reboot this idea of classic horror with Dracula Untold (2014) and The Mummy (2017). This idea was to usher in “The Dark Universe,” with actors already signed on for prospective films. This fell flat on its face, as the films mentioned were drabs of any bubblegum CGI soup of a film, with the generic action starts hired over emotive performers. The downfall of this universe was that it sacrificed the theatrical-style scenery and actors for something more realistic. These are monster movies that aren’t meant to be realistic, and the rebooted franchise failed due to it. It could’ve taken a note or two from 1999’s The Mummy, which at the time, might’ve been the gateway into a new franchise.

Also, the scarab beetles? Don’t come near me with that shizz. I can’t look at a beetle today without thinking it will penetrate my skin and eat my brain.

oh lawd they comin'

Overall rating: 6 locust swarms out of 10.

Of course, go watch the film if you haven’t, and if you have, go watch it again. This is Nathan D. Gonder, and that’s a wrap.