The Mummy

So we come to my 3rd film, and the one of the first ones I remember seeing: The Mummy. Truly one of those childhood gems that you never get tired of.

The Mummy came out back in 1999 and stars Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo and Oded Fehr. I would normally tell you who the director is at this point, but let's just say he's the guy who brought us Van Helsing and Deep Rising. I'll give you a minute to let that sink in.

As you may have guessed from the title, the movie takes part in Egypt. In the opening, we see a priest called Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) who is engaged in an affair with the mistress of Pharaoh Seti I, Ankh-Sun-Amun (Patricia Velásquez). When this is discovered by the Seti, Ankh commits suicide, intending to be resurrected by Imhotep in Hamunaptra, the City Of The Dead. But when Seti's guards catch them, Imhotep's men are sentenced to be mummified alive, while Imhotep is forced to endure the Hom Dai, a ritual that causes eternal suffering, but if he is ever brought back to life, he will be an immortal, destructive being, with the ability to unleash the 10 Plagues of Egypt. But that are the odds of THAT happening?

 Sometimes, make-up DOESN'T solve everything

Cut to several thousand years later, and we see our heroine Evelyn (Weisz), an aspiring Egyptologist, as her bumbling brother Johnathan (Hannah) shows her a map he 'found' that leads to Hamunaptra. Finding out that the map belonged to a condemned foreign solider Rick O'Connell (Fraser), who agrees to be their guide after they free him from the noose, they all set of to Hamunaptra, only to find out that a group of American treasure hunters are out to find it as well.

So through a series of digging and grave robbing, our characters uncover both the corpse of Imhotep and the Book of the Dead, which has the power to bring people back from the dead. Yeah, I think you can see where this is going.

So the eponymous baddie is resurrected, and wreaks havoc upon the world. Cue gun-fights, fist-fights explosions and over-the-top special effects.

The film is essentially a stereotypical good vs.evil slug-fest, with the odds always stacked in evil's favour. The enemy is an invincible monster, cant be stopped by anyone. Imagine if The Terminator shaved his head and wore a robe, this is probably what you would get.

Upon it's release the movie was criticised for aspects such as poor script, some hammy acting, over-reliance on CGI and general silliness. The fact is, the movie is silly, but that's one of the things I like about it. It has a lovely and charming goofiness about it. Like films such as The Fast and The Furious, it's not a clever or sophisticated film, but it never pretends to be. It knows exactly what is, a simple, action-packed family adventure, and that's exactly what it gives us. So if you like shameless fun, cool special effects, quirky humour, and want to learn a little about ancient Egypt, then this is the film for you.