Disappointing sequel

Rating: Null/10 (6 May 2001)

"The Mummy Returns" is a disappointing follow-up to the smash-hit 1999 original.
Writer-director Stephen Sommers has reassembled most of the pleasing cast from "The Mummy", but with mixed results. This time around, dashing adventurer Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) has married his lady love, beautiful Egyptologist Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz). They have a nine-year-old son, Alex (Freddie Boath, who could teach "The Phantom Menace" 's Jake Lloyd a thing or two about acting). Also back (from the dead) is the villainous Im-Ho-Tep (Arnold Vosloo), who must defeat the reincarnated Scorpion King (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, in a role that's little more than a cameo), so that Im-Ho-Tep can take over the army of Anubis, and from there, the world. In addition, Oded Fehr returns as the Medjai warrior Ardath Bey, and John Hannah shows up as Evelyn's playboy brother Jonathan.
I'll start with what I really liked about this movie. I liked the chemistry between Rick and Evelyn; I really felt their anguish when Alex was endangered. Fehr's Bey was very much the Jedi warrior (I know, different movie, but that's what it felt like to me). The fight scenes were very kinetic and well-photographed. The large-scale battles were quite rousing, especially considering the difficulties of integrating CGI and live action in a convincing fashion. And Vosloo brought some real empathy to his role, an empathy which was mostly lacking in his earlier turn (where he was just required to be the Major League Badass).
But (and you knew this was coming)...so much of this movie felt recycled from the first, or at least lifted piecemeal from other genre movies. Early on, there's one shot involving Alex that is a direct repeat of a shot from the first movie. There are other shots that I will not reveal because they involve major plot points, but they left me very much underwhelmed. "The Mummy Returns" also makes a common sequel mistake: funny sidekicks in the first movie are given larger roles in the sequel, resulting in the sidekicks' being not quite so funny any more. Although Hannah's Jonathan had some droll lines, for the most part, he just seemed to be emotionally retarded, which got old very quickly. ( He does, however, redeem himself.) I also thought Alex was too big for his britches for most of the movie; he was just too smart, too adult at times.
The final third of the movie, when the action moves back to Egypt, also felt rushed and schematic, as if Sommers simply ran out of creativity and decided to just end it. I felt really, really cheated by the final scenes. Again, I won't reveal the ending, but it left me completely unsatisfied.

And so, to sum up this too-long review: I wanted to like this movie. I really did. I feel so let down. My grade: C
-terry-