There are a handful of big blockbuster films that, technically, I should like...but don't. When I technically, I mean just that. When it comes to $100 summer blockbusters, I don't mind saying that I can turn my brain off and admire a film simply for it's visual effects, epic locations and action sequences. That's why I feel I ought to be showing a little bit of love towards Van Helsing, Godzilla, Licence To Kill, Pearl Harbour and Dick Tracy....but I don't. I hate them.
Same can be said of Stephen Sommer's megahit The Mummy. I ought to like it for lavishly shot desert locations, inventive action and tongue in cheek characters. But The Mummy just bores the shit out of me every time I try and watch it.
Still, I went to see The Mummy Returns two years later never the less, and was pleasantly surprised when I came out on a high. The Mummy movies will never reach the level of wit, excitement and sophistication that the Indiana Jones movies attained, but the sequel was something that definitely but a big grin on my face. I think it helped that everything is bigger and better in the follow up like the action sequences (the London bus chase is superb), the score (who'd have though Alan Silvestri could out-composed Jerry Goldsmith), the silly gags, the family at stake, the globetrotting locals, the glimpses into the past and the mesmerising girl fights between the lovely Rachel Weisz and the exotic Patricia Velasquez.
It's all very silly (zombie Pygmy warriors!) and Sommers penchant for cartoony special effects gets even worse here (tacky dog-headed warriors / the Scorpion King's plastic face) but at least this instalment has some real, genuine energy behind it that allows me to give a monkeys.
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