Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Mummy

Rating: 4/10 (12 October 2018)

"The Mummy Returns" is best when it's shamelessly recycling the story from the prior "The Mummy" (1999), especially when the characters joke about the repetition early on. Through the double-decker bus sequence, where they fight the same mummified soldiers from the last picture, and after the woman is once again saved from bondage, and after another temple full of booby traps and secret passages, and the kid repeating mommy's domino effect of bookcases but with columns this time, this sequel excels at recapturing the magic of movement and comic relief of its predecessor and the formula that was borrowed, as many others have pointed out, from the Indiana Jones franchise. But, then, there's a tonal shift towards the dramatic, including another kidnapping and some not-so-Ancient-Egyptian nonsense about reincarnated bodies and destinies spilling over from past lives, and, like the balloon of the airship, it's as though all the air was taken out of the fun.
There's also an appreciation for the excess inherent in sequels--seemingly reaching back to Universal's past life of monster movie sequels beginning with "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935), calling for the doubling of everything. So, now there are two mummies (Imhotep and the Scorpion King), two reincarnated women, two flashback scenes (one of which is shared by the two women), two men following ancient codes of protection (the good Egyptian from the last movie and the white American hero sporting a new tattoo), two abductions, two sets of travel and plots (train and airship), two countries, two fictional Ancient Egyptian sites and two real ones, even two black stereotypes (one the good clown, the other the evil buck). Not all of the excess amounts to much, though. The Scorpion King especially gets short shrift, and his CGI creature looks about as realistic as the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen without an ounce of the charm. There's another curator, too, except he's evil this time, and we're offered hardly any explanation as to his motives and methods. And the whole past lives business seems to be here just so that the women can do fight moves between choppy editing just like the men. I miss the simplicity of the frumpy librarian flirting with the rugged, gun-toting adventurer.
In addition to this sequel, like its predecessor, opening with an Ancient Egypt flashback, there's a shared flashback vision after the tonal shift, which elaborates upon the last movie's flashback: from one perspective, it's a pool vision like the one in the 1932 Boris Karloff "Mummy," and the other is from the airship. Additionally, there are the visions from the bracelet serving as this one's map. Again, there are bugs and quicksand, and now there's an army of mummified Pygmies and Anubis Jackal-men, all providing disintegrating, bloodless PG-13 deaths and violence. As well as the gaping mouths from afore, this one adds catching thrown weapons. Like the sequel "Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984), a kid is added, but fortunately nobody is named "Short Round," and nobody eats monkey brains.