Fluff Sequel

Rating: 4/10 (15 January 2008)

The Mummy Returns is a quick fluff action piece with some poor slapstick comedy. It uses numerous Deus Ex Machina for the sake of using them. One might feel there's the use of retconning here too, but again, even those were completely out of place.
It is pretty much a family movie (far more so than the first one) but some young children could be scared by the mummies. For the most part it is upbeat and doesn't ever give you the feeling that anything will go wrong.
Synopsis: Bad guy comes back to beat another bad guy to rule the world and the good guys try to stop them all. Most of the characters do a lot of traveling and then have a showdown. Mixed in is some chumming of the good guys that leads no where. Plus they add fate/destiny stuff just to make sure we don't get any more sequels.
It assumes the audience has attachment to the characters and assumes you feel the good guys are a tight group but never really builds that up. It's hard to tell if the movie was just poorly made, or if there was really a much grander and broader story that had to be cut down to a couple hours.
The acting is okay except for Patricia Velasquez who seemed wooden, but that might have been the directing and not her. She was quite sexy, so it balances out. Rachel Weisz was far sexier in this movie than the first, and the rest of the cast does okay; certainly Brendan Fraser is very comfortable in his role as Richard 'Rick' O'Connell.
If you watch it right after the first movie, you'll notice clearly that the CGI is a lot worse in returns. This adds to the idea that it was just a poorly written movie to cash in on the first movie's success. Besides the poor CGI, the action sequences really are quite well done. They're easy to follow, are fast paced, and include more dynamics than the rest of the movie.
This is a different movie than the first one. It's less Indiana Jones and more.... well think of a bad kids movie that's supposed to be an adventure but seems silly.
It really doesn't feel like it meshes with the first movie (especially the love between Anck Su Namun and Imhotep), and while it introduces the Scorpion King idea, it again doesn't mesh with that movie at all. Unfortunately I think it ended this franchise when it really should have spring-boarded a series of movies had it been done with more thought.
With all of that said, ultimately it is a fun movie if you don't care about verisimilitude and as I said, most people would see it as fun for the whole family. It just lacks depth, solid writing, directing, and decent CGI. If you can snag it cheap, you'll feel like you got your money's worth. It isn't one of those movies where you just feel cheated for your time. It's okay, fluffy fun; just turn off your brain first.