I remember a few summers ago I was able to go to the air-conditioned theatre, slap down six bucks, and enjoy whatever explosive mess was lighting up the movie screen. But then I became a grizzled old man who forgot how to appreciate the scrupulously crafted piece of fluff known as the "summer blockbuster". Defined as a movie that only promises to keep your eyes racing so your brain can take the afternoon off. Maybe it was the fact that I decided that I liked my brain and hated being told by some big-studio marketing honcho that I am obligated to pay nine dollars to become a drooling zombie for three hours; but it's more likely that I'm a bitter old man with no marvelous boy left inside. With that said you can take or leave anything I might say about these summer extravaganzas.

I applaud The Mummy and I applaud its writer/director Stephen Sommers. It took an industrious mind to wake up in the morning one fine day in Hollywood, scratch one's head, and realize that Indiana Jones was a made a long time ago and much potential lay untapped. So in 1998, Sommers and Co. slapped together an "adventure/romance" called The Mummy and America flocked to theatres to satisfy the craving they didn't even know they had for a repackaged Indiana Jones flick. When the dust settled and the many, many millions of dollars were counted, anyone with the slightest amount of conciseness realized that the "plot" was completely flawed and baffling, that Sommers had nothing on Lucas or Spielberg, and that Brendan Fraser could, if he was having his most superb day, clean Harrison Ford's underwear. But in Hollywood, quality, while penciled in somewhere on the map, takes a back seat to the green- and the opportunity for tons of green sends it someplace in the back of the trunk. This is not a good thing or a bad thing, per say, rather it just is. Sometimes the formula benefits the movie-going world (Lethal Weapon, Terminator) and sometimes not (Beverly Hills Cop, The Crow).

The Mummy Returns arrives in theatres purely as a calculated attempt to squeeze more money out of a previous hit (and it has certainly done so raking in the largest regular weekend opening ever!!!…ever!?). It's not like Mr. Sommers had more to say about The Mummy or that Fraser's hero, Rick O'Connell, was so engaging that the character needed to be fleshed out a bit more. This isn't Coppola treating us to a sumptuous, layered mafia trilogy - this is about money and target audiences being satisfied. So beyond hitting those marks, getting anything else right is a pleasant surprise.
The story is really an after thought. All of a sudden, Rick is a marked man, with a tattoo proclaiming him a Medite warrior, or "protector of man", and Evie, a slutted up Rachel Weisz with some Sarah Connor toughness, is the reincarnation of Pharaoh's daughter; the same Pharaoh who was murdered by mouth stretching Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) and Anck Su Namun (Patricia Velazquez, who is bizarrely included to the new story line) in the first movie. These are obviously newly conjured up ideas because there is not even the remotest hint of such circumstance in the original and the movie makers completely play it off as such; but then again, if you care- then you're thinking way too much. Once the movie gets past the tired reintroduction of old characters, like Ardeth Bey (Oded Fehr), the mysterious longhaired warrior who describes everything as "sacred" and finishes every sentence with "my friend"; and makes some corny references to the first movie (as if we feel nostalgic), while somehow assembling some form of ludicrous guideline for the tale to be told, we get to the good stuff.


The second half of the movie is quite watchable with some pulse pounding action and your better than average special affects - but, overall the movie is thin, thin, thin, I'm talking "emaciated" thin. True, the Indiana Jones movies were just for fun, but they had heart -while these Mummy movies are so transparent in their lack of heart that it makes enjoying the few bright spots difficult. For example, John Hannah, as Evie's brother Jonathan, is terrific comic relief in both films and he is remembered fondly well after the curtain's drawn, but the soulless big picture anchors him down and I wonder if he will ever surface in the non-Mummy role he deserves. There is absolutely nothing to say about The Rock here because contrary to the hype and the cover of Entertainment Weekly, Dwayne Johnson is not in this movie. I don't consider running with a sword for one minute and flexing to be acting, performing, or even appearing. He will get his chance to prove himself as something more than an eyebrow raising wrestler in his own feature, The Scorpion King, brought to you by the makers of The Mummy.
Don't let my sour disposition ruin your summer viewing pleasure and may you thoroughly enjoy all the junk offered in your local multiplex , on that note, let me know how you like Pearl Harbor.