Not my cup of tea!

Rating: 7/10 (17 January 2001)

To be honest, this film is not my cup of tea, but I recognize that it does have some excellent features. Brendan Foster and Rachel Weisz make a great partnership and go a long way in setting the pace and maintaining it at top speed.Also, they somehow or other are able to link together a whole series of scenes composed of farcical nonsense. And in the labyrinth of passageways where the scenes take place I find myself at a complete loss in understanding just where they are inside the pyramid. But that does not matter. There are far more exciting and terrifying things to worry about e.g. the bloodless mummies resurrected and in a fit of rage attack our heroes with wild abandon and the scarab beetles that can enter beneath the skin and burrow around the human body. There is danger at every corner. The special effects are so well done. Swords flash in every direction and legs,arms and heads of the mummies are sent flying from their scare-crow figures. Our hero and heroine escape death by a split second time and time again like the characters in the Saturday afternoon serials. Anything can be done to excess and I feel the fight with the mummies is rather long and a trifle repetitive. I wonder sometimes if special effects are ousting the actors in cinema today. This is a mammoth production. It must have cost a fortune to make. The most exciting episodes for me are the escapes through the corridors with the counterbalanced blocks of stone closing the escape routes. I admire the charismatic Brendan Fraser (so good in George of the Jungle). He handles these crazy parts so well. His co-star Rachel Weisz plays an archeological librarian who unbelievably does translations of Egytian hieroglyphs while on the run. What a gal! In a word, this film is a mad mixture of movie magic. Kids will love it to the end.