The Mummy

Rating: 8/10 (26 July 2014)

Title: The Mummy
Condensed Storyline: A group of explorers discover the lost city of Hamunaptra, they soon awaken the mummy who hunts them down one by one to assimilate their organs and bodily fluids.
Notable Acting: Brendan Fraser is known for his role as Rick, and his role in the franchise is what some believe to have made the movie work in the first place. Needless to say, the other movies he's been in haven't been as good as his role here. Rachel Weisz plays the Evelyn who always needs rescuing as she is the damsel in distress. John Hannah plays everyones favourite coward Jonathan, he acts like a coward and ultimately is one in this movie and we love him for it. Kevin J. O'Connor plays a similar role to John Hannah in this movie but Kevin's character of Benny will side with who ever will give him money.
Noticeable Camera work: The movie is great at faming up its shots, especially for scenes of torture of death, making it so you can't see it, but still grasp the feeling of what is going on. Time lapse of a couple thousand years while we are looking a the statue of Anubis. Dolly shots following the action in the first fight scene Worms eye view of the Medjai
Graphics: The CGI in this movie is great for its time, be it the CGI for the mummy or the scarabs, it is great. The mummy looks like it is there, the effects that have been used with the sand are convincing and make to be an amazing movie.
Incorrect Science: The 'Book of the Dead' should be the 'Scroll of the Dead', because Ancient Egyptians didn't use books, they used scrolls only. The Roman Empire invented the book layout which is used today. Evelyn says that the scarabs ate Imhotep alive and very slowly, but every time we see them on screen, they always eat people within seconds. There were 5 canopic jars in the chest, but only 4 are used in actual mummification. Evelyn also mentions that they would take out all of the organs, this is incorrect as only the lungs, kidneys, intestines and stomach were put in canopic jars and the brain was removed and discarded. The heart and other organs were kept in. Imhotep fears cats because they are the guardians of the underworld, in actual Egyptian mythology, cats were worshiped as gods because they were connected to the goddess Bastet who was the goddess of motherhood and protection. The actual guardian of the underworld was Anubis who would guide the souls of the dead into the afterlife or the underworld.
Overall Feel: When I was younger, I had an ingrained fascination with Egyptology and this film was one of my all time favourites. So much so I watched this movie (Which is rated 15 for DVD) and I watched it over and over being only single digits in age at the time. So I will try and be not so bias in my review. This movie has its fair share of faults, especially when it comes to knowing about Ancient Egypt, but I would blame this more on the screen writers than anyone else. This is movie was made a year after Deep Rising, using a similar horror theme along with the actor Kevin J. O'Connor. Before this franchise, there were only mummy movies for the 'golden era' of cinema, which had the notoriously bad and some what cheesy effects that you would expect which classic monster movies, this movie made mummies cool again. This movie does have jump scares, but they are mild and are just there for the characters in the movie more than the audience.