Warning: This review is a critique that is written primarily for people who have already seen the film. If you haven't, be warned that it is basically one giant spoiler.

I really enjoyed the first film. Most people think of a Mummy as the least frightening of all the classic monsters. I mean, the general consensus seems to be that anyone stupid enough to get caught by a slow, lumbering, bandaged up corpse probably got what was coming to them. I think the makers took the idea of a Mummy's power as far as anyone ever had. The sets were extremely interesting, and places like the treasure room had a very 'fantasy' type of nature to them. I told people that I thought the special effects impressed me more than the ones in "The Phantom Menace" later that year. I actually feared for the characters, for how could something this powerful be stopped? I found almost no scenes other than the overly comical early ones to be at all disappointing. I gave that film 4½ stars on my web page.


The only parts of this sequel that I liked were the clever use of seeing a scene from the first movie in a flash back from across the balcony where we saw it the first time around. That was a pretty cool thing to see. Also, the fight scene with the sai-like weapons between the two women was well done, but maybe only in comparison to all the other wretched fight scenes in the film.

I thought the first film was pretty scary, but this one wouldn't scare a six year old. We see these supposedly terrifying mummy warriors running along walls and eventually making it onto the bus. When they finally catch the villains, they aren't really able to hurt them except for throwing them up and down a bit. We even see one mummy grow claws, but he still isn't able to hurt Ardeth. How can the director not realize that this only tells us that the characters are not going to get hurt in this film?

A similar problem happened when we finally get to see the very menacing Scorpion King at the end of the film. He was so fast and powerful, that I was amazed that we were supposed to believe that Rick could dodge him for the four to five minutes that he did. It is clear from the way he charged the original Mummy, and later killed another person that this creature is very fast, and very strong. Much stronger than Rick's character could ever be, especially before he got his weapon.

And lets not forget one of the more original creatures, the pygmy zombies (at least that's what I think they were). We see them tearing up extras right and left, killing with their bodies, blowguns and other traps, yet our heroes seem to casually walk through their territory with complete impunity. I mean they are being chased, but so were all the other guys who got attacked.

The special effects were mostly of a very high quality, but some of them looked bad enough that they really stood out. Like the Rock's face on the Scorpion at the end. Why did that look so bad, when the body held in his claws looked so good? Why did the water effect look so fast and forceful, but yet kept getting closer and falling behind while the air balloon never seemed to change speed.

Many of the action scenes were filmed with some sort of jitter effect that 10 years ago, only the computer effects would have had instead. This made it hard to follow some of the action scenes, which is a disappointment, since they were much better in the first one. The jitter is kind of like the shaky camera in the opening scenes of "Saving Private Ryan", but were nowhere near as well done. Here it was just distracting.


But enough about the film's overall weaknesses. Here are some huge questions that I dare anyone to answer:

Where exactly are our heroes in the beginning of the film? If it was so close to the Nile, why hadn't it been discovered before? Why were the three thieves there to rob them if they hadn't even found any item yet? Why did the three thieves not stay and capture the artifact if they stayed around long enough to find out it was going to be taken back to London? Why did our heroes go back to England with their new found artifact anyway? How did the killers attacking the house in England fit so many people into two cars? What happened to the woman who was Jonathon's date? What happened with the half dozen or so mummies that came to life while Brendan Fraser and Ardeth were walking through the museum? Why would a museum have rows and rows of bottles of formaldehyde anyway?


Look, I'm only about twenty minutes into the movie so far, and I don't think the Mummy deserves even this much of a detailed analysis. I give up, so here are some more questions from later in the film.

Why did the boy leave detailed sand castles when he could have just written down the name of where they were going next? How did Jonathon and Evie manage to obtain such good sniper positions a day before the mummy entered the jungle and not be attacked by the Pygmies even though there were shrunken heads on the perch they were hiding on?

How did Rick & Evie outrun the water in the flooded cave? How did the rocket blimp outrun the wall of water chasing them through the caves? How did Rick outrun the sunlight? And, as a side question, wouldn't the top of the Pyramid have the sun hit it well before the base did?


Bleech. This movie had my hands raised to my sides for so much of the movie as if to quietly say "What??????", that I just cannot seem to give the film the standard review that most people would expect.




Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8