One of the more enduring movies of 1999 has certainly been Stephen Sommers' remake of the classic Universal Monster movie, The Mummy. In fact, when the film was rebooted with Tom Cruise in 2017, that film was met with a collective shrung with audiences just wishing Universal had made another movie with Brendan Fraser and company instead. One can hardly blame them too, as this movie is still a blast 20 years later.
Evie Carnahan (played by Rachel Weisz) is a librarian and aspiring Egyptologist living in Cairo when she is presented with a unique artifact from her brother Jonathan (played by John Hannah). It is a intricate box that contains a map that Evie quickly recognizes as the lost city of Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead. Jonathan reveals he got the box through less than legal means from an American Adventurer Rick O'Connell (played by Brendan Fraser), who was at the city three years prior while fighting with the French Foreign Legion. After negotiating his release from prison, Rick agrees to take Evie an Jonathan there. They soon discover another group of American treasure hunters led by a former comrade of Rick's, Beni (played by Kevin J O'Connor), are searching for the same place in pursuit of treasure. Both groups soon arrive at the fabled lost city and begin exploring. Evie, Rick and Jonathan discover the mummified remains of the High Priest Imhotep (played by Arnold Vosloo) while the Americans discover the Book of the Dead. Later that night, Evie sneaks over to the American's camp and quietly steals the Book of the Dead. Reading a passage from the book, she unwittingly awakens the mummy of Imhotep. With Imhotep unleashed, he sets out to begin sucking the lives out of the people who invaded his tomb, restoring himself in the process. He also sets his sights on Evie as the perfect person to use to resurrect his beloved Anck-su-namun. This leaves our trio of intrepid heroes scrambling to figure out a way to put the all powerful Imhotep back in the grave and save Evie from similar fate in the process.
The film was written and directed by Stephen Sommers, who took the basic plot of the original 1932 Universal monster movie and mixed in a heavy dose of Indiana Jones Saturday Morning Serial adventure and plenty of humor to craft a thoroughly thrilling and fun film. Still, there is a fair amount of horror elements throughout the film too with the main villain Imhotep working his way through the Americans in a bid to restore himself to his former glory, as well as targeting Evie to use to resurrect his beloved. These elements never stray out of the usual realm of a PG-13 movie, but still can be rather creepy even if some of the CGI effects, especially a partially deteriorated Imhotep or the ancient scarab beetles that love to burrow under people's skin, don't quite hold up all these years later. Yet what the film may lack in effects, and they hold up more than they don't, it makes up for in it's own spirited and at times genuinely funny storytelling. The production design of the film is exquisite, from the wide open deserts to the ruins of Hamunaptra as well as the flashback to ancient Egypt that opens the film. It all gives the film a wonderful sense of scope on which the filmmakers are able to tell their goofy little tale.
The film has a wonderful cast led by Brendan Fraser as the quick-witted Rick O'Connell, always ready with a firearm and a one-liner. Fraser imbues the character with plenty of charm and is clearly having a blast playing the role. Rachel Weisz does a great job as Evie, showing her character's intelligence with ease as she is an incredibly accomplished librarian, including able to read ancient Egyptian. And like all true voracious readers she isn't always careful about what she reads aloud, which unfortunately directly leads to the resurrection of Imhotep (whoops!). John Hannnah is a lot of fun as Evie's scheming and carefree brother Jonathan. Kevin J. O'Connor is equally fun as the cowardly Beni who is willing to do anything to survive, including helping Imhotep just to save his own skin. Arnold Vosloo is great as Imhotep, especially when he is back to full power, proving to be a powerful and frightening adversary that proves immune to Rick's preferred way of dealing with such threats - copious amounts of ammo.
It's hard to believe that The Mummy is really 20 years old. I still remember fondly when it was released in theatres, as well as the the trailers for it playing repeatedly on the monitors in the Blockbuster Video I used to work at back in the day. The film itself was a huge hit, spawning two sequels and an animated series. It's a film that remains beloved by it's many fans to this day and rightfully so. It's a fun adventure yarn with a monster movie twist that everyone seems to be having a lot of fun making and that fun remains contagious to this day.
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