An insult to Indy !

Rating: 4/10 (5 December 2001)

I've never really managed to watch either of the Mummy films uptill a few days ago, when I decided to give The Mummy Returns a try.
I've always liked these kinds of adventure/fantasy/quest kinds of films, and so I expected to have a great time watching it, without really having any high hopes.
Well, what a dissapointment it was. It doesn't happen often that I don't even finish watching a movie, but this was just too bad...no fun, no excitement, no tention and no beautiful settings like we've been spoiled with in Indy films.
It started all in the very first scene, where this 'Scorpion Warrior' is played by one of the most pathetic actors I've ever seen in such an expensive movie....he's just not convincing....it's just a wrestler or something that is just too idiotic to act a guy that's angry, or almost dying. The moment when he's the only one left in the desert, and falls to the ground from exhaustian is just an insult to any similar film ever made. What a disgrace!
And it just goes on like that, although the main actors are very good...not a bad word about them.
The scenes that have computer generated backgrounds (so that the actors are playing in front of a blue/green screen) are just as terrible and unfinished looking as in Star Wars Episode I.....when you make something like that you have to be carefull that the light, contrast and colors in your background are the same as in the part where the actors play. It's ofcourse not easy to do these things, but if you're not too experienced don't overdo stuff.
The result is that the studio sets are very small and cheap looking, which doesn't give you the idea that they are really there.
The film gets even worse because of the childish humour and story, but most of all the directing just completely fails. The guy who directed it doesn't seem to be any good at telling stories....there's no build up to anything, and characters just 'pop' onto the screen....Why do we see a detailed story of 'the mummy' and then suddenly find our 'heroes' in the middle of a quest already ??
This film makes all the Indy movies look ever better....I always thought it was a great idea to find him in the middle of a meaningless quest, after which he returns home and then the real story begins...but with a slow build up.
No, the scene where they were driving that buss in London almost made it look like it was a parody on Indy.....it could have been done by Mell Brooks.
Okay, even a badly made movie can be okay to waste a few hours on a rainy day, but it just wasn't fun.