I'll bet Egyptologists are not pleased

Rating: 5/10 (1 April 2010)

I've learned that the sequel to a blockbuster hit is always risky business - especially if that film was a well-crafted film to begin with. Many such attempts have failed miserably, while rare cases have been worthy follow-ups. The much-anticipated sequel to Stephen Sommers' "The Mummy" lies somewhere in-between those two categories. "The Mummy Returns" is indeed an entertaining film that'll have you laughing hard and keeping you on the edge of your seat. But as a film of intelligence and integrity, it falls short in almost every way.
In the featurette found under the Special Features of this set, Stephen Sommers confesses that he is a great fan of everything Egypt. However, I find this statement highly ironic considering the fact that the underlying plot of "The Mummy Returns" degrades the very heritage of Egyptian mythology. Long ago, a defeated desert warrior, the Scorpion King, made a pact with the dark god Anubis. Together, the two defeated the Scorpion King's enemies, but Anubis subsequently made the Scorpion King his slave and his army fell dormant. If you'll look into Egyptian mythology, Anubis is the god of the dead, who prepares the dead for the afterlife and takes them to the Hall of Judgement; he was never an evil god. To see him presented in such a mutated form as he appears in this film is nothing short of sacrilege to me. Perhaps Sommers was thinking of the god Set (who wasn't even always evil in the Egyptians' book). Either way, I set into this movie with a feeling of anger, not anticipation.
The rest of the movie proves to be as short on plot as the opening scene, mostly serving to keep the action going and to perhaps induce a few laughs rather than maintain the movie's believability. Our heroes from the first film, Rick and Evelyn, are now happily married as the O'Connells, and have travelled to an unknown temple with their son Alex to unravel the mystery of a dream Evelyn had. While that mystery has the edge on the film's plot development, the rest can hardly be described as such. Alex unwittingly slips on a cursed bracelet, and meanwhile Imhotep is being revived by a secret faction, whose goal is to defeat the Scorpion King and take control of Anubis' army - and by so doing rule the world. Thus a haphazard chain of reactions is set in motion including dirigibles, pygmy mummies, full-on battles between Medjai and (sigh) Anubis' warriors, and even a double-decker bus! When you've got all that together in a film, it somehow loses its integrity.
The most serious problem is that the plot hardly makes any sense, and contradicts the first film numerous times, e.g. in bringing people back to life being strangely easier than in the first film, and the timeline being off, meaning that Alex should have been born before the first film took place! Oddly, NewLine Cinema decided to mitigate the latter with subsequent DVD releases of the original rather than the sequel, staging it a few years earlier! The only thing I find worth watching about "The Mummy Returns", apart from the mystery of Evelyn's dream and the excellently-crafted Anubis and army (courtesy of IL&M), are the interactions between the spotlight characters. Rick and Evy are endlessly entertaining as a couple (Rachel Weisz having matured a lot in her role since the first film), though not as much as John Hannah as the trouble-inducing Jonathan, almost solely responsible for the film's considerable comic level (apart from Izzy, the entertaining sky pirate). So an action adventure film this is, with all the comedy present just like in the first film. And yet the plot is so nonsensical and its development so haphazard that the film miserably fails at its attempt at being a solid piece of film-making - if indeed it was intended as such.
Overall, "The Mummy Returns" feels more like an endless explosion of special-effects than much else, once again showcasing the brilliance and professionalism of Industrial Light & Magic (IL&M). Especially (groan) Anubis and his warriors are very aesthetic and well-done. But the haphazard, no-sense majority of this movie is not the deserving place for such talent and creation.