**.5,2.5 out of 5 stars,Brendan Fraser as a bit dopey but a surprisingly somewhat hipper & funnier attempt of Indiana Jones

Rating: 7/10 (9 May 1999)

With the exceptions of plot & film design & Sp.FX the way on how you can rate this film is its PG-13 content I'll show you: (This is not something I do commonly) Violence:Incredibly over-gruesome! at least the filmmakers were nice enough to block out the film's gory parts(which proves that censored graphic violence can have a good side which in this case prevented this film to be a dumb gorefest),this film along with the corpse Sp.FX make the much better film(**** out of 5 stars to be specific)transformers the movie look like a epidose from "Barney & Friends"(note it did had its fair share of over-brutal violence but no where near enough as much as this film) Language:like most films(Top Gun,MST3K the movie,notable exceptions) the language wasn't all that needed but that's no big deal here. Brief Nudity:Don't be fooled by this part (note I'm NOT one of those hormone-surging perverts),there was no nudity in this film just the princess in the film was wearing an incredibly revealing outfit - true she was almost nude but not enough to be "must be covered not to be seen by children" type of nudity,so basically there was no nudity. Sp.FX:Most of the Sp.FX in this film saved it from a much worse review,some of it actually helped to bring it down,The impressive:the Sp.FX in the beginning were actually the best as if they had help from the people of Pixar(Toy story,A Bug's Life),but after the ancient egypt prologue what wasn't in the unimpressive list did look well done but not as much in the prologue,unimpressive:I'll start with the mildest the face in the sand wasn't all that impressive,the 2nd worst the scarabs were more like leeches in this film & besides they more looked like little blue blobs than scarabs,now the worst the corpses(I can't really call them mummies which i'll get to in the plot),for the pre-teen to adult it'll more than likely nauseate you if you see the corpses on a moderately-to-full stomach & it places this film from the intended "Well too scary for li'l kids" to "Would probably traumatize to at least place li'l kids in thearapy for a long while" & the recently dead corpse's I'd wish the filmmakers were nice enough to block out the scenes of those corpses (but they wouldn't)
Plot:A big problem to a big helper in this film,the plot is completelly weak & is rather bad at times(the only actual mummies in this film were the priests when they were mummified alive),& like what I'd said before the scarabs mostly were more like leeches,& the film was a big mild "ROTLArk" parody not too mention that after I'd seen the reviews here I'd have to admit the pilot guy was rather wasted,but the only light part of the Plot & film was the moderately funny one-liners they'd never contend to great comic films but at least it gives a comic break from most of the films plot(not to mention the ancient-egyptian love scandal during the prologue was a little weak too)
Film Design:What most I can tell you here is more relev. to the other areas,So I tell you a couple of noticed film flubs,1 the anubis jar tops -1 of them is a brass St.Wrs Yoda head I'd kid you not, 2nd when im-ho-top got his arm chopped off you can see the metal wiring on the sliced off arm before he placed it back on So in short:the 2 main reasons why I saw this film were 1:a mother's day present for my mother I saw it with her,2: (I know there's still plenty of the year) but I saw it so I've actually seen a movie this year(the last time I'd went to the M.Theaters was seeing the Rugrats movie back in Dec.98),so even though most of the special effects were impressive & the one-liners were funny the rest of this film is a freaky-I.J stylish-monster-mummy movie.