Product: The Mummy Returns [VHS] (2001)
Rating: 4.0
Your True Love always stays with you
As the finale of this movie shows. Evie rescues Rick, but Patricia Velasquez's resurrection of Anck Su Namun runs away from her 'true love', Imhotep.Brendan Fraser & Rachel Weiz are back once more, with their characters bratty little son, Alex (Freddie Boath). Arnold Vosloo is also brought back, with a much bigger role this time, and for the guys, Patricia Velasquez is back as Meela Nais, the reincarnation of Anck Su Namun. The designs on Anuk Su Namun's sleeves on her dress look exactly like her body paint in her previous life. John Hannah & Oded Fehr return as Jonathan & Ardeth Bey respectively.Who are the cast joined by this time? The one, the only, Dwayne Johnson, otherwise known as The Rock, for all you wrestling fans. He shone so much in the TWO scenes, Stephen Sommers promptly gave him his own movie.There's a lot of similarities between the first movie and this movie. When Alex is reading from the Book of the Dead, he has trouble translating a hieroglyph of a stork. His Uncle Jonathan reminds Alex what the symbol means. In the original, Jonathan needed help from Evie translating the same symbol. The dialogue is almost exactly the same as the first film, and in both movies, the person helping the translator with the last word, is fighting with Anck-su-namun while they speak (Evie in the first film, and Jonathan in the second). Also, the title does not appear at the beginning of this film. The title finally is given at the end of the picture, after the headlining credits but before main credits roll. (That's why I love this film: I can't stand fast-forwarding through loads of credits to start watching the movie) Alex knocks over the columns in the same way his mother knocked over the bookcases in the original.In this, Evie realises she's been reincarnated, and she was around at the same time as Imhotep - what a coincidence! And she & Anck Su Namun also knew each other. Another coincidence. It's actually very good how they managed to work this out, despite my sarcasm. For the guys, you also get to see both girls fighting - woooo. Evie was called Nerfertiri but originally was supposed to be called Nefertiti but the producers felt that people would make (...) jokes about the name so it was changed to that of another Egyptian queen.There seemed to be a lot of pain in this movie: Brendan gets very much beaten up throughout - he tore a spinal disk, cracked a rib, and injured his knees during production. Dwayne Johnson suffered from food poisoning and sunstroke. (Ha!)This is a great movie, a fantastic sequel. There are rumours going about there's going to be a Mummy 3, without Imhotep and Anck Su Namun. It could happen, although it could be a little boring to reincarnate Imhotep 3 times, and Anck Su Namun twice. Imhotep could come back to life as king of hell as he fell down to the gate of hell. And Anck Su Namun could come back as Scropion Queen, as she was bitten alive by insects. If you liked both these films, you'll probably enjoy Scorpion King, although it seems pointless to give a guy who was in TWO scenes (hey, and he was CGI in the second scene!) his own movie.