The Mummy Returns Google Drive
Thora Buckner
It is a curiosity of movie action that too much of it can be boring. Imagine yourself on a roller coaster for two hours. After the first 10 minutes, the thrills subside. The mistake of "The Mummy Returns" is to abandon the characters, and to use the plot only as a clothesline for special effects and action sequences. If it were not for references to "The Mummy" (1999), this sequel would hardly have a plot at all.
Nine years have passed. Brendan Fraser is back again as Egyptologist Rick O'Connell, and Rachel Weisz, the librarian he met in the first film, is now his wife; they have an 8-year-old son named Alex (Freddie Boath). Also back are John Hannah as the twitty brother-in-law Jonathan and Arnold Vosloo as the mummy Imhotep, whose name sounds more than ever like an ancient Egyptian chain of pancake houses. Oded Fehr is the worried sage Ardeth Bay, who begins sentences ominously with "It is written that. . ." until Rick finally snaps, "Where is all this written?" A good question, since much of the story involves a magical pyramid of which it is written, "No one who has seen it has ever returned alive." That logically leads us to wonder how they ever found out about it. But logic applied to this movie will drive you mad. So will any attempt to summarize the plot, so I will be content with various observations:
1. The ads give the Rock, the World Wrestling Federation star, equal billing with Fraser. This is bait-and-switch. To call his appearance a "cameo" would be stretching it. He appears briefly at the beginning of the movie, is transmuted into a kind of transparent skeletal wraith and disappears until the end of the film, when he comes back as the dreaded Scorpion King. I am not sure, at the end, if we see the real Rock or merely his face, connected to computer-generated effects (his scorpion is blown up to giant size, which has the unfortunate effect of making him look more like a lobster tail than a scorpion). I continue to believe the Rock has an acting career ahead of him, and after seeing this movie I believe it is still ahead of him.
2. Alex, the kid, adds a lot to the movie by acting just like a kid. I particularly enjoyed it when he was kidnapped by a fearsome adversary of his parents, chained and taken on a long journey, during which he drove his captor crazy by incessantly asking, "Are we there yet?"
4. I have written before of the ability of movie characters to outrun fireballs. In "The Mummy Returns," there is a more amazing feat. If the rising sun touches little Alex while he is wearing the magical bracelet, he will die (it is written). But Rick, carrying Alex in his arms, is able to outrace the sunrise; we see the line of sunlight moving on the ground right behind them. It is written by Eratosthenes that the Earth is about 25,000 miles around, and since there are 24 hours in a day, Rick was running approximately 1,041 miles an hour.
5. One of the big action sequences involves a battle between two vast armies, which stretch as far as computer-generated effects can see. One army is human. The other army is made of countless creatures named Anubis that look like giant savage dogs that stand upright and run on their hind legs (it is not done well, but one is surprised to find it done at all). These armies clash in bloody swordplay. Each dog-creature, as it is killed, reverts to the desert sand from whence it sprang. Finally all the creatures are destroyed, and we see the victors standing around feeling victorious and wishing that high-fives had been invented. And we notice that not one single member of the victorious army is dead or even wounded. Pathetic, that thousands of years of ancient curses and spells could engender such an incompetent army of dog-sand-creatures.
6. Several readers have argued with the rule in Ebert's Little Movie Glossary that teaches us, "no good movie has ever featured a hot-air balloon." To be sure, there are exceptions, but "The Mummy Returns" is not one of them. Its hot-air balloon looks like the ship that sailed to the land of Wynken, Blynken and Nod.
7. At one point the action returns to London, and we see Tower Bridge, the dome of St. Paul's and Big Ben clustered closely together in one shot. This is no doubt to make it easy for the geographically challenged. Perhaps adding a few snapshots from Madonna's wedding would not have been too much.
In the year 3067 B.C, the Scorpion King, a fearsome warrior who led a vicious campaign to conquer ancient Egypt, marches to the city of Thebes intending to rule. After a violent campaign between the Scorpion King's army and the army of Thebes which lasts for seven years, the battle goes to the army of Thebes, who cast out the invaders into the desert of Ahm Shere.
The Scorpion King soon finds himself the last living member of his army, all the others having died from the desert heat, exhaustion, and lack of food or water. At that point, the Scorpion King himself is dying, and in his last moments, he prays to the god Anubis, pleading for the chance to win one last battle in exchange for his soul. In response, the god sends out a large black scorpion from the sands, which the warrior chews up, despite its successful attempts to sting him, which results in a great oasis sprouting from the desert.
The Scorpion King, with his fallen soldiers replaced with the Army of Anubis itself, returns to Thebes and continues his siege, winning the city and killing many. Once the battle is ended, however, the Scorpion King's soul is taken to the Underworld, as is the Army of Anubis.
The King is branded by Anubis and will awaken 5000 years later. Upon awakening, anyone who kills the Scorpion King can either send his army back to the Underworld or use it to enslave mankind and take over the earth. His bracelet is left on sands and is now the guide to locating him and the Army Of Anubis.
While Red goes after Rick and Evelyn, Spivey and Jacques stay behind to look for other artefacts. Meanwhile, Rick and Evelyn find and enter the chamber where the bracelet is kept. Back at the main chamber, Alex secretly harasses Spivey from on top a wooden platform but is later found out by Jacques who goes to kill him. As Evelyn struggles to open the box containing the bracelet, Rick finds the key and they open it to discover the Bracelet of Anubis while Red readies his pistol to fire.
The scene then turns to an excavated Hamunaptra. The excavators are paid by a cult lead by Baltus Hafez, curator of the British Museum. In a tent, a warrior named Lock-Nah states that the discovered Book of the Dead gives life. A woman named Meela Nais, who is revealed to be Anck-Su-Namun reincarnation states that the Book of Amun-Ra takes life away. Just then the excavators unearth a swarm of scarabs that devour some of the excavators and a couple of cultists. The cultists then force the scarabs back into the pit using flame throwers. Just then, a call sounds out, and Hafez exclaims, "We've found him."
The O'Connell's arrive back to there mansion home in England, with the Bracelet, Evelyn decides to journey to the Lost Oasis of Ahm Shere to find the Scorpion King by using the bracelet as a map. Rick protests this as he does not want to endanger their lives and begins flirting with Evelyn to change her mind. Unknown to them Alex who is carrying the chest opens it and wears the bracelet which shows him a vision of Karnak. He fails to take the bracelet off and places a football statue inside the chest and rolls his jacket sleeve down to cover the bracelet.
The cultists force Sheila out and confront Jonathan about the Bracelet of Anubis, but Jonathan, thinking Hafez is working for a man named Johnny that Jonathan is indebted to, pleads for more time to pay what he owes. Hafez states that he knows no-one named Johnny and begins to ask about the Bracelet of Anubis. Jonathan states honestly that he has no idea what they are talking about, but Hafez does not believe him, having Shafek take a dagger and hold Jonathan back. Jonathan then lies, saying that he lost the Bracelet in a card game, and at that moment, Hafez's attention is diverted as he eyes the Spear of Osiris in Jonathan's hand; Jonathan claimed the Spear years ago when it was taken from Hamunaptra by Beni.
Meela Nais then walks into the room with a basket in her hands, asking where Jonathan's wife is, believing him to be O'Connell. Jonathan lies that Evelyn had gone off to Baden-Baden or Tibet, but this excuse does not register with Meela, who pulls out a venomous Egyptian asp from the basket and brings it closer to Jonathan so that it would bite him. As Meela steps further with the snake, Jonathan lies once more and stated that the Bracelet is in a safe downstairs, furthering his lie and giving a combination; Meela is not distracted by this, as she moves closer with the asp in her hand. At that moment, Rick steps in, seeing Jonathan being held back and tortured with a snake and a dagger.
O'Connell, thinking that it is another of Jonathan's wild parties, asks the "guests" to cease their activity but is stopped as Meela throws the asp at O'Connell. O'Connell catches the snake and throws it back at one of the cultists, and in a reciprocal move, another cultist throws a dagger at Rick, almost hitting him, but dodging once O'Connell throws it back, hitting another cultist instead. Another cultist open fires with a machine gun, but O'Connell and Jonathan escape, with Jonathan pocketing the Spear from the curator's hands.
Lock-Nah finds Evelyn and Alex and asks where the chest is. Evelyn, angry at the intruder in her home, draws out a sword from her wall and demands that Lock-Nah leave. As Evelyn demands that Lock-Nah must leave, several thugs step out from behind him, outnumbering Evelyn. As Lock-Nah declares that he will kill her and take it anyway, just then Ardeth Bay, a rival of Lock-Nah steps out to defend Evelyn and Alex. A fight ensues with several cultists brought down; Lock-Nah takes the moment to approve of Ardeth's duelling skills before removing his cloak and joining in the fight.