Fun but disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (5 May 2001)

It is always said to see when a director and writer sacrifices what might have been a quality story for special effects. This is the case with the sequel to Stephen Sommer's "The Mummy". I sort of knew this would be the case when looking at the previews they showed several scenes with the army of Anubis marching across the desert but none of the story. This is because while the story was there and it was interesting, it was nothing to write home about. There was one review I read that compared Rick O'Connel (Fraser) to Indiana Jones. Fedora hat included this comparison may be accurate but this movie is better compared with the second of the Indy sequels which by all accounts was not as good as the first or third Indy movies.

This movie introduces itself very well. The first half hour is very entertaining as we are shown all the main characters and told basically what to expect. The problems happen about the point where the characters find themselves on the way back home to London. There are all these guys running around in red suits and we have no idea what their motivation is other than wanting to wake up Mr. walking talking corpse. Why would you want to do that? They never explain it. From that point on the movie is fun (don't get me wrong - it was fun to watch) but it lacked the original's originality. The humor, I am happy to say, is still present and made for good times.
The other day I watched the original movie with the director's commentary turned on and got a glimpse of why this movie is the way it is from Mr. Sommer's comments. There is no doubt that he is talented but he should have stuck with creating a good story and then hired ILM to do the SFX. I won't comment on "The Rock" as he in only in the movie for about 15 minutes and his role is... different.
6 out of 10