The title says it all: it's an expensive rehash that isn't much fun.

Rating: Null/10 (10 December 2003)

** out of ****
Because of how much I enjoyed the original, I looked forward to the prospect of a sequel to The Mummy; that is, until I noticed the title, The Mummy Returns, which virtually promises this to be a sequel that does little more than rehash its predecessor. Basically, this means the same villains, same setting, somewhat the same story (except bloated exponentially, I'll get back to it later). Damn, I'm starting to appreciate Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom even more. Hell, forget that, TMR makes it even more obvious how great of an adventure movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was because that film also took its predecessors basic elements but reworked them into a fresh, cohesive, and smashingly entertaining joyride. As for The Mummy Returns.ugh.
Set in 1933 (eight years after the original), Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz reprise their roles as Rick and Evelyn O'Connell. They're apparently super-rich, judging from the luxurious British mansion they live in, so they must have cashed in on all that treasure they inadvertently brought back with them in the final scenes of the original. The couple also have a young son, Alex (Freddie Boath), who's probably more mature than his Uncle Jonathan (John Hannah).
Rick and Evelyn's latest `excavation' in Egypt uncovers an artifact that curious Alex clasps to his arm, revealing the location to.gah, damned if I know, suffice to say that Imhotep the mummy will be revived and there's lots of talk of reincarnation, prophecies, saving the world, and big scorpion kings that half look like a WWF wrestler.
Therein lies the movie's problem, the messy story, which might have seemed reasonably passable in preconception stages but comes across as totally confusing and confused on-screen. Director Stephen Sommers isn't a master storyteller, but his work in The Mummy clearly shows he has a love of escapist filmmaking and crafted the plot in a simplistic but engrossing enough manner that it didn't get in the way of the characters, the action, or the adventure. He obviously didn't learn his lesson.
I'm actually a pretty big fan of the man's work, but this is easily his biggest misfire since The Adventures of Huck Finn. The Mummy Returns is just turgid filmmaking in almost every aspect of its production. Only the likeable cast and the general fact that Sommers is better at delivering pure spectacle than say, the likes of Michael Bay, Joel Schumacher, and Roland Emmerich keep this film generally watchable.
But didn't Sommers realize that what would have made this second go-round far more invigorating would have been to place our already beloved characters into a totally different environment with new dangers and villains? He seems perfectly content recycling virtually every aspect of the original film, and then geometrically bloating every little detail into something bigger, which appears to have been the key word going through his mind.
Everything about this movie is bigger than the original. There's more action and it's larger in scale; there are more badguys, more special effects, more flashbacks, more Magi, and more prophecies, all this without the much-needed freshness or the rousing sense of adventure.
Whenever Sommers gets into a bit of a speed bump in the plot, he simply explains it away with prophecies and reincarnations. Rick O'Connell himself is a bad-ass adventurer, making him into a prophesied warrior destined to save the world puts a bad taste in my mouth. Couldn't they have just kept him a rugged, hunky hero without the mystical crap? Same goes for Evelyn, who as it turns out, is the reincarnation of a murdered pharaoh's daughter, conveniently the same pharaoh killed by Imhotep (why he didn't recognize her in the original is beyond me.oh, wait, that's right, Sommers just made this B.S. up for the sequel). The reincarnation bit does little for the character other than explain why she can suddenly fight so well with sais; why was it included again? At one point after the hour-and-a-half mark, Sommers knocks off one of the main characters in a scene that would have been genuinely affecting if this same character hadn't been revived by an ancient Egyptian ritual ten minutes later.
Cliffhangers can be a lot of fun, but when they're resolved the way they are here, it's like someone's intentionally slapping you in the face. At one point, O'Connell, who's carrying his son in his arms, actually outruns the sunrise. In one of the climactic battles, there are not one, but two instances where characters grab spears that have already been thrown mid-air and one of those moments is shot in Matrix-style slow motion!
And thus we segue into the action, which should be the movie's selling point, but is instead a good part of what holds the film back. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any adventure movie so intent on piling on one action scene after another, so much that it becomes a bit of a headache after awhile. I should be in action movie heaven, but Sommers' occasional miscalculated direction makes a lot of the fights and chases pretty boring. The slow motion I've already covered, but a couple of the fights and chases boast too many quick cuts, nothing as extreme as a Jerry Bruckheimer production, but too distracting to make the action genuinely exciting.
You remember how in The Mummy, it was damn cool and exciting to see what sort of havoc Imhotep could reek? To find out what cool power he would use next? All he does here is repeat what he'd already accomplished in the first go-round, he `telepathically' lifts people off the ground and tosses them around and instead of making a giant sandstorm, he makes a giant wall of water. Yawn. As far as new villains go, Velazquez's Anck Su Namun is hot, but where the hell was her reincarnated self in the previous movie? The Anubis warriors are pathetically useless and The Scorpion King is just a terrible visual conception.
But much as I wish I could hate the movie, I just can't. The cast is just too damned adorable. O'Connell is no Indiana Jones, but he's about as cool and fun a substitute as you can get. Fraser is obviously having a ball in the role, even if he has put on a slight bit of unflattering weight. Rachel Weisz's Evelyn is the best Indiana Jones girl Indy never had. Hell, forget that, she could kick all the Indy girls' asses in a three-on-one match and still come out looking as pretty as ever. Evelyn's my kind of woman: tough, intelligent, beautiful, with all these great qualities wrapped around a warm, caring heart. I think I'm in love.
John Hannah is, unfortunately, not as funny as he was before; like the movie itself, his humor's lost its sense of freshness, but he's still a bit amusing and certainly still a charming, greedy doofus. But then there's that crucial casting error, Freddie Boath as little Alex. Kids in action movies tend to be the purveyor that destroys tension and excitement. As a matter of fact, the only kid sidekick I've ever liked was Short Round from Temple of Doom and let me tell you something, Alex sure as hell is no Short Round. He's funny in spurts, but ultimately just not a charming or talented enough actor to pull the role off.
A good cast can do a lot for a film, much like what Fraser and Wiesz do here, but while they make The Mummy Returns ultimately a middling experience, it's a little sad to see such fun characters that don't get the movie they deserve.