Indiana Jones Lite

Rating: 8/10 (12 May 1999)

The Mummy is, at heart, an adventure serial from the 1930's, which means it is in the same genre as the Indiana Jones films. While it never achieves the excitement and awe that those movies brought to the big screen, it has its moments.
The cast, for the most part, is outstanding. Brendan Fraser plays another variation on his hunky-cartoony persona, swaggering and swashbuckling like an old pro. Rachel Weisz is great as the feisty love interest, sort of a Lara Croft for the 1930's. The chemistry between the two is real, and their dialog is witty and exciting.
Arnold Vosloo makes a somewhat disappointing mummy, however. He never seems very menacing -- largely because he looks more like a high school math professor than a mighty lord of the undead, with his doe eyes and pudgy face.
Whether or not you like the special effects in the film will depend largely on how you feel about computer animation. There are some shots, particularly of the mummy, that look like low-grade "Hercules&Xena" quality effects, a surprise since the effects were done by Industrial Light&Magic. Some of it works, some doesn't, and it all would have looked better with models and makeup (but I'm old fashioned).
Regardless, the movie is cheery, exciting, and fun. There is an element of "Army of Darkness" style camp which is good for laughs, but it also delivers some good old-fashioned thrills and chills.
No one will ever mistake The Mummy for a masterpiece -- it's too slick, too post-modern, and at times embarrassingly silly (like the beginning, where characters stand around spouting plot exposition as if they're pitching us the movie). But it's well worth the 6 or 7 dollars to see on the big screen.