"Wait, what? That makes no sen... ooooh... preeetty..."

Rating: 6/10 (29 December 2009)

Before I begin this, you should know that I don't care for Indiana Jones either. I caught(not by choice) one of the old ones, and I could not tell you which of them it was. Uh... it had spiders... oh, and a scene in a plane that I believe inspired the lyrics of at least the chorus of a song by Aqua, the short-lived Danish pop phenomenon. So, on to this pile... at this point, the flicks Sommers was... putting, let's go with that... out were still intolerable(of what I've seen by him, only G.I. Joe did not physically hurt me to sit through). He needs to stay far away(I'd be willing to sign a petition to enforce that, can we get a court to issue a powerful restraining order, maybe?) from classic horror films, because, as should be no secret to anyone who's seen him do a pathetic attempt at it, *he lacks even the most basic level of understanding of the genre*. Is *anyone* scared by anything in any of these? He can't build suspense or tension, and he refuses to commit to any creature enough to make it menacing. I haven't watched the original, from 1932 and starring Boris Karloff, but I am certain it is superior to this. Frankly, this is idiotic. It is not funny, it is not entertaining, and it is not engaging. Every single character is obnoxious(a couple are offensive Middle Eastern stereotypes, as well), and what few personality traits they do have are all wildly unappealing. Are we supposed to care about these people? I can imagine their own families not wanting anything to do with them. The effects(and yes, they are fairly well-done(meanwhile, this was made when The Matrix was, so it could have been better) though there are too many of them, and it ceases to be dramatic) are *clearly* the focus here, evidenced partially by the fact that these morons literally *stand in place to gawk at them when in imminent danger*, destroying a lot of the sense of potential peril. Why are the monsters all so utterly inept? Yes, yes... it's a cinematic convention that they have to suck when attacking the leads, however, these seem *completely* useless. In general, this is extremely over the top. The score is another example of that. Evelyn falls for Rick, for no other reasons than that he's there, he's Caucasian and he's not related to her by blood. The action is not all that exciting. That's not a mummy, anyway; it's a decomposing body that has risen from the dead... anybody who knows their supernatural lore will tell you immediately that that's a *zombie*. Seriously, if they thought the old bandage look was silly, then why did they make a movie of the monster at all? This is not entirely devoid of interesting bits. And Oded Fehr, arguably the strongest charismatic screen presence, was certainly cool to see again. He was the best part of this for me. There is mild and occasionally disturbing violence, and brief partial nudity in this. The DVD contains two commentary tracks(one with the director and editor, and one with Fraser) that aren't half bad, a handful of short things that show you the different elements of the visual effects, three storyboard to final film comparisons, a few deleted scenes, a photo montage and a theatrical trailer. I recommend this to fans of Stephen and/or adventure. 6/10