A fun old fashioned adventure movie

Rating: 10/10 (8 May 1999)

This movie was just a lot of fun to watch. To me it had a similarity to the old serials that I used to see at Saturday matinees at a theater in my hometown when I was a kid. There was a lot of cliffhanger moments and the pace of the action was very frantic, especially in the second hour of the film. The plot is pretty basic and has been done before in other mummy movies, but what distinguishes this film is the wonderful special effects and photography. Industrial Light and Magic did a great job with the computer graphic effects. The thousands of beetles, called scarabs, are particularly frightening as thousands of them devour a body in just a few seconds.
The heroine, Rachel Weisz, is very nice to look at and is very appealing. Brendan Fraser does a great job and has a lot of funny one liners in the film. Arnold Vosloo makes a great mummy and has a very ominous appearance. He is perfect in his part.
All the sets and props are wonderful and show where part of the 80 million dollar budget was spent.The desert photography was very beautiful, and the effect of the desert sandstorm flowing over the cliffs was particularly impressive.
So if you are looking for a fun exciting way to spend two hours, and if you like old fashioned adventure movies, your time will be well spent