A poor man's Indiana Jones - but still endlessly entertaining

Rating: 8/10 (18 July 2006)

The Mummy is a great summer adventure for nonstop thrills and kicks. It has a lot of humour; memorable comedic performances (Brendan Fraser), fantastic settings and surprisingly striking CGI for 1999. There is little technically wrong with this film other than that is clearly borrows heavily from the King of action-adventure, Indiana Jones.
What begins as a treasure hunt in the City of the Dead soon turns into a plot that essentially goes like this, as described by Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser), "Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world." The good thing is, there is a lot more to it than that, and unlike Indiana Jones, the male hero is not alone in his mission nor does he get all the credit for it. He is joined by the damsel in distress herself Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) and her brother (John Hannah) who all want a piece of the treasure in the dead city.
While the dialogue is typically sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek, it is not desperately punchy. It is probably on par with the Indiana Jones trilogy in terms of cheesy lines. But Brendan Fraser delivers these in a way that is so fitting that it does not really matter, to be honest. Fraser truly gets to shine and show us that is indeed best when it comes to comedy.
This isn't Citizen Kane, but it's NOT 'brainless' summer fun either. It's just a very good adventure story even if it lacks originality.
8/10