A worthy sequel

Rating: 8/10 (4 May 2001)

This is a movie I have been waiting to see since the first movie. I thought that the story was fairly well written, and thought that a sequel, if well done, would be great fun.
I wasn't disappointed. The movie takes up 10 years after the events in the first movie; Rick and Evie are married and have a son, Alex, and are living in London when they're not on digs in Egypt. Now that the Bembridge Scholars have come to their senses, Evie is working at the British Museum, and has begun to have strange dreams and waking visions of her in ancient Egypt.
Enter Imhotep, newly resurrected by his followers, who is going to rule the Army of Anubis and take over the world. Anksunamun is also there, in the flesh, to help Imhotep on his mission. His mission is to defeat The Scorpion King, the ancient leader of the Army of Anubis, played by The Rock. Lots of action, fighting, mummies running up walls and golden pyramids later, our heroes prevail (as if you expected otherwise?)
The story runs pretty smoothly throughout and the acting is pretty good, at least as good as the first movie. I wasn't expecting Oscar nominations out of this movie. If you are, wait until it comes out on video and save a couple of bucks for your disappointment. The special effects were OK, too, though a lot of them were rehashes from the first one (wall of water instead of sand, Imhotep absorbing the souls of his victims to gain strength, mummies running on the walls, scarabs coming out of the sand, etc.) The most annoying part of the movie, which I had problems getting past, was the very poor quality of the computer-generated graphics involving The Scorpion King in the last bit of the movie. Given the high quality of the rest of the CGI, from the recreations of Carnac to the Army of Anubis to Imhotep-in-tatters, this was very difficult not to notice.
Overall, a good adventure flick with a couple of good laughs thrown in, this should be on a par with the original Mummy in terms of success and viewability. Will I be waiting for The Mummy 3 based on it? Sure will!!