Fun, but not art... And where are the Egyptians?

Rating: Null/10 (11 May 1999)

I enjoyed this movie very much, although I think it could have been a lot better.
The first half of the movie (after the wonderful and creepy ancient Egypt scene) had me somewhat confused and even bored. There were a lot of characters introduced, but we aren't given much information about any of them. The Brendan Fraser character is in a shootout, dressed in some uniform gunning down hundreds of assorted horsemen in the middle of the desert. I've learned through reading the reviews and production information that he was in the Foreign Legion - but were we supposed to guess that ourselves? I guess that the editing of this movie just wasn't that great. We are also introduced to this 'Beni' character, who bothered me because I couldn't tell WHAT he was. Was he supposed to be an Egyptian? Again, through reading on the net I find out he was from Budapest (what a terrible accent). Which brings me to another gripe - in this day and age, why weren't more, or ANY, for that matter, Egyptians used for any of the main characters? Even the pharoah's main guardsman is of European descent. I also was not as enamoured of the brother character, 'the drunken English fop'. I just thought he was an annoying afterthought, although I see that many people loved him.
But enough of that. I loved the mummy character - although I had a hard time understanding why he was supposed to be so evil - he seemed like a sensitive romantic to me (other than the assassinating the pharoah thing). Brendan Fraser was gorgeous as usual - could we see some more chest please? I still wouldn't compare him to Harrison Ford as an action star though - there's still something missing, although it could be a fault of the script. And the librarian was beautiful and played her part very well. I appreciated the no-gore policy of the film, but I still wouldn't take a child under 13 to see it. Lots of decimated bodies, gouged-out eyeballs, flesh-eating giant beetles. The special effects were GREAT. In spite of what some others have commented, I thought the mummy's half-face and elongated jaw effects were fantastic. Not to mention the sand wall thing.
A fun movie for a Saturday matinee, and I will be renting it on video.