Fun pharaoh tale

Rating: 8/10 (1 February 2015)

This has been shown by UK ITV so many times over the years that apparently similarly with the many other regular viewers it has become one of my comfort films to see repeatedly. A night with Die Hard, Where Eagles Dare, The Guns Of Navorone, Stargate, Time Machine and The Mummy all on TV would be a night of terrible clashes.
Starting in 1290 BC in Egypt with a "very naughty" priest mummified alive it moves on to AD 1923 with a wise cracking male American archaeologist meeting up with a dotty female British one and her lily-livered brother to go on a jovial quest for an ancient tomb. Together with a jovial rival digging party they manage to unleash the forces of Darkness by awakening the less than jovial Mummy to bring plague and death. I hope Evie was happy with all the carnage her impetuous reading of the incantation from the Book brought down on thousands of hapless heads. The varied mayhem ensuing meted on the just and the unjust is sometimes horrific sometimes slapstick – probably kids today think the heartlessly graphic imagery laughable, but me, I'm easily horrified. However ultimately, it's a fast and fun adventure yarn for kids and adults alike with an interesting plot but with plot holes as gaping as Imhotep's gob, taken relentlessly and with panache to a noisy conclusion. The gags fall thick and fast too; it was Brendan Fraser's finest film and although Rachel Weisz has done better things they really made a charming screwball couple – without them sparking it would have been a completely different film. And I wouldn't have seen it so often either. If Arnold Vosloo lives to be 2000 years old he will probably never top his characterisation of the ancient baddie in here. So with some gruesome cgi cartoonery moments not for the squeamish but also with plenty of solid nonsense entertainment for the hardened majority there's something in here for nearly every mortal.