This Mummy ain't the Daddy.

Rating: 6/10 (21 May 2001)

***POTENTIAL SPOILERS****
I would like to make one point before all others and that is, for an SFX movie, the SFX were ropey. They look like they wouldn't be out of place on Xena. Maybe ILM were rushing through them before Star Wars 2 hit pre-production, but they are just obvious and of poor quality. When ILM are involved I expect the best groundbreaking effects that can be created. The first Mummy did, this did not.
Aside from the cheap looking CGI, the story is poor, but I expected that. What does really annoy me is that the screen time is shared equally between about 10 characters. This ensures that everything that happens is very shallow and uninvolving, because the audience doesn't get to know anyone at all. The two best characters, Rick O'Connell and Ardeth become watered down heros that just fight a lot and pop up to save the day in the nick of time i.e. they are merely plot functions - no longer the characters we met back in 1998. The charm of the two characters and their strengths from the first film aren't built upon, but eroded by their minimal screen time.
The child is a waste of screen time who's role in the narrative could have (and should have) been given over to John Hannah's criminally underused character. In the first film Rachel Weiss made for an excellent damsel in distress, but here she is unable to carry the extra weight. This may well be more to do with her wafer thin character though, than her talent. The Mummy himself has but a cameo performance and once again the only word to describe that is 'wasted'.
The character of Lock-Nah is wasted horribly. Early on he is set up as being someone who is as hard as nails. About 15 minutes later an for the rest of the film, he becomes comic relief. This problem runs deep through the film. Ther isn't a sense of danger in this film. There is not a single point where you can conceivably doubt that the good guys are going to win. No matter what horrible special effects that they face the audience know full well they will emerge unscathed.
Another problem with this film is the action. It is done in a faux Hong Kong style that doesn't work. Lots of slow motion and the like. It doesn't work for two reasons.
1) Hong Kong films have done all this before, with smaller budgets and most importantly they have done it BETTER.
2) The Hong Kong style looks out of place in an American film that was supposed to be a homage to old adventure serials. Stephen Sommers should have stuck with the type of old fashioned action seen in the first film, like the shoot out on the boat.
This whole film reeks of missed opportunities. I get the impression that this should have been tightened up in post production and the SFX worked on, so that by Christmas or New year they would have an awesome film.