a fun sequel, but the lackluster script hurts it's full potential

Rating: 6/10 (23 April 2020)

First of all, this sequel for a period of time was very popular when it was released in spring 2001, being a box-office hit, spawned a couple of video games (there not that good), an animated series that lasted 2 seasons (suitable for children, no flesh eating bugs or PG-13 graphic violence) and started the movie career of wrestler-turned actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and of course the prequel film "The Scorpion King" starring The Rock. this film was constantly on television for a long time, even more then the 1999 Mummy film. i saw this film when i was 11, i loved it back then, however one of the secondary villain's death scene gave me the heebie-jeebies and nightmares for years. i was only 11, i easily get nightmares at the time. now re-watching after a very long time, finally overcome this once disturbing death scene. still enjoy the film, but the flaws are much bigger then i remember.
almost the entire original cast and production crew are back, with Stephen Sommers returning to write and direct this film, but this time it feels like more of a studio demand film then a well-balanced sequel.
the plot takes place 9 years after the events of the first film, Rick and Evy are married and have an 8 year-old son named Alex, they became rich (probably from remaining treasures they found in the previous film, since they never bothered to even reference it), live in a big manner somewhere in Britain. but their adventure tomb-seeking habits never left them and all three O'Connell's went exploring ancient egyptian ruins, thanks to evy's visions they manged find the "bracelet of Anubis" as a valuable treasure at first, unaware it's a cursed item that can guide to the resting place of The Scorpion King and also a key to unleash god of the underworld Anubis' Jackal army. meanwhile evil worshiping cult leaded by Meela Nais a reincarnation of Imhotep's lover Anck Su namon who's being having similar visions to evy about her past and found Imhotep's corpse in the ruins of Hamunaptra. resurrecting him with the "Book of the Dead" to fulfill some kind of ancient prophecy on the year of the scorpion (on the year the film takes place) to kill the scorpion king and control his army for world domination. after the baddies failed to achieve the bracelet, they kidnapped Alex (due to his curiosity to put the bracelet on his wrist, unable to remove it) to use him to guide them to the secret resting place until they see fit to dispose him. Rick and Evy on their pursuit to find him with the help of Medjai Ardeth Bay, Evy's Brother Johnathan Carnahan and the pilot Izzy Buttons, to find their son and stop Imhotep from fulfilling his destiny.
like with the previous film, the sequel "the mummy returns" has great production values, time period setting, much larger action set-pieces and in times it does feel bigger in scope, the cinematography, fight choreography, stunt work, nailed the action, sense of adventure, ancient Egypt themes with egyptian mythology, culture and trying their best to add the dead language of ancient Egypt into the film the second time. some special effects looks fine other's very outdated (even back in 2001).
the protagonists: Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connell is more developed this time, less of a jerk and more serious, cares about his family more likable then before, but the one who has changed the most was Rachel Weisz character Evy, from a book-worm to ass-kicking adventurer, she can hold her own, to the point that rick is almost a secondary character to her. their son Alex played by freddie boath who manged to avoid the annoying child character trope in this film, he's funny and likable, very smart 8 year old and comes off like a secondary comic relief, similar to John Hannah's character Johnathan Carnahan, who changed very little, but still funny and has few great moments. Oded Fehr as ardeth bay is fine, but sadly very underdeveloped when compare to the first film and his dialogue is 90% exposition dump. the villains: Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep is great as always, but sadly little underdeveloped, since Patricia VelÃ¡squez character Meela has more focus as villain then him. both Alun Armstrong and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje characters "Hafez" and "Lock-Nah" are excellent side villains, it's a shame they barley have any development.
and of course Dwayne Johnson as the other main villain The Scorpion King, who only appears twice, first in the prologue and in the final climax with infamously badly rendered motion capture CGI.
the late Jerry goldsmith was replaced with Alan Silvestri, who i think did an great job less majestic and more sense of high epic adventure music, considering the film is going for much bigger Indiana Jones vibe then the previous film. but lacks the sense of mystery and wonders that goldsmith provided.
so what's the problems? the script and some of the CGI. unlike the first film which had better pacing, focus and a point, the sequel's plot feels genuinely rushed, underdeveloped and moves from point A to Point B very quickly. the film has more going for the emotions and visual storytelling to it, but the dots don't really connect and it comes at the price of underdeveloped characters, motivations that makes zero sense and a lot of mythology and geography errors. they don't even bother to explain important plot details like who are the evil worshiping cult is or why imhotep doesn't want to take his revenge on the O'Connell's. there are couple of plot holes as well, but the one that bothered me even back then was on Evy and Meela being the reincarnations of their egyptian ancestors (that connect's to the fate of imhotep, when the pharaoh was killed) which causes their visions is very head-scratching and comes off as forced lazy storytelling to piece an already under-cooked script, it's such a shame because underneath this lazy script there's a very fun epic adventure film that could have been even better then the first film if they took their time working on a better script (since sommers wrote it). the CGI, for some reason sommers used this tool a lot since his film "Deep Rising", with the effect from ILM, but due to it's early age it can look super ugly on some things. CGI on imhotep is an improvement from the first film, some green screens look really good while others look very dated, but the scorpion king from the distance looks fine, thanks to clever lighting and other effects but from close-up it's really bad gives a very early 2000 video game CGI cut-scene vibe.
also i must address this, not only the script feels lazy and rushed but there's also blatant copying plot-points from the first film here, another opening prologue that takes place 3,000 or 5,000 years ago to introduce a villain who later get resurrected, some macguffin item that's both a key and a map, using flight transportation to the destination to rescue someone, imhotep using one of the elements with his face on it to stop protagonists flight transportation, another secret ancient temple in the middle of the desert that many people were looking for they never found it or never returned, a gold item/weapon to stop the main villain, imhotep loses his powers by the third-act and dies by giving himself to the underworld, the secondary villain gets killed by insects and ends with the protagonists escaping just in time from a collapsing temple with treasure in the end.
despite this issues, it's still enjoyable popcorn flick, just switch-off you're brain because the amount of plot-holes and suspension of disbelief is much higher then the first film.