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Mummy (1999), The
Universal // PG-13 // April 9, 2002
List Price: $24.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie
"The Mummy" is one of those films that starts off rather promisingly. The performances are enjoyable, the effects are incredible and the film has an air about it that seems to not take itself that seriously. There are a few moments here and there of grand action in the first half; enough to satisfy. The second half though, begins to become too much. It throws every last bit of effects at you. It's very loud, it's flashy and to a point, it's entertaining. I just wish it would stop for a fraction of a second. After a while, the film turns to overload; it felt as if I was being battered and bruised by an onslaught of special effects and sheer sound volume.
The film is sort of a remake of the 1932 film starring Boris Karloff, but this time it's all about the effects. Suprisingly though, I found the performances quite enjoyable as well. The story begins with a tale about the Egyptian priest, Imhotep, who is carrying on an affair with the Pharaoh's mistress. The two get away with murdering the Pharaoh, but he doesn't get away from the Pharaoh's guards, who mummify him and bury him alive, along with a batch of flesh-eating beatles, who are sort of like great ancestors of the bugs from "Starship Troopers".
Flash forward to the present, where we meet our hero, Rick O'Connell(Brendan Fraser) who is fighting off an entire army almost single-handedly at the site of Hamunaptra, where the Mummy was buried. After getting the hint that evil lurks about, Rick leaves the city only to find himself in trouble again, about to be hanged for causing problems in Cairo. Coming to his aid are an adorably goofy young librarian(Rachel Wiesz) and her brother("Sliding Doors"'s John Hannah in an excellent performance); the two want to be taken to Hamunaptra to search for lost artifacts and Rick agrees to lead the way. They're joined in the search by a group of American treasure hunters eager to find the fortune for themselves. Watching over all of them are a band of guards in black robes, people who have been there for all time to make sure that Imhotep stays put. Of course, the audience knows that it's only a matter of time before the Mummy is released and when he does, he's not too happy.
The band of adventurers now find themselves scrambling to escape everything the Mummy throws at them; various plagues, other Mummies and even those funky beatles make appearances throughout the film, crawling under people's flesh and eating them from the insides. As the film continues, the Mummy grows ever more powerful, taking the body parts he needs from his victims. And since the Mummy can only be slowed down, not killed by gunfire, it's up to the heros to find what will put him back in his place.
The film has a certain charm that I was suprised to find; it truly doesn't take itself seriously and that certainly works to get past the screenplay, which isn't that poor compared to other recent action films, but it certainly isn't art. Where it doesn't help is during the action, where it doesn't quite achive the right balance between convincing the audience that the enemy is something to be feared and scared by and convincing the audience that this is just one big amusement park ride; all in the name of entertainment. It's not quite to the level of success that the "Indiana Jones" series had; it's more like, "Son Of Indy" or "Indiana Jones, Jr." It tries to be "Indiana Jones", with the humor of Sam Raimi's classic horror film, "Army Of Darkness".
There are certainly things that work well, though. Brendan Fraser, who has so far made a living out of slow, goofy characters has sort of sharpened the "goofiness" into a quick, funny and lively performance. He certainly makes a better action hero than a boy who's lived in a fallout shelter till he was 30(the recent "Blast From The Past"). Rachel Weisz is onhand as a librarian with a fascination about Egypt that joins Fraser's Rick for the ride. She tries well, but she doesn't quite hit the right comedic note that the character calls for. The most successful performance at times is from John Hannah, who was recently seen in "Sliding Doors". His performance as Jonathan is witty, sarcastic and hilarious, hitting the right sort of comedic timing that the movie calls for. There are few funnier scenes this year than when Hannah's Jonathan tries to "blend in" with Imhotep's new army.
There's a point though, where less here would be more. It all starts off nicely structured with the occasional action scene thrown into the basic story set-up to keep us interested while the film gets to it's point. It finally does get to the point, then keeps screaming it at us, as loud as the roar of the title character. Once "The Mummy" hits the halfway point, the action really begins; the second half is scene after intense scene involving stunts, effects, and even the wall of sand that made an appearance in the trailer. After awhile, it throws so much at the audience that it gets tiring; after a point the film simply never stops and has a pace that makes "Speed" feel like a walk in the park. It's sort of interesting though that as basic as the film's plot is, every moment is designed to push the audience screaming into a state of overload. There's so much going on here, there are even plot points that seem to have fallen off the roller-coaster. We find out Imhotep is scared of cats mid-film, then the idea is never brought up again. Maybe there weren't enough pet stores in Anicent Egypt, who knows.
That's part of the problem. The director, Stephen Sommers("Deep Rising") also wrote the film. He does a very good job moving the film along like a train about to fall off the tracks, but the writing isn't great. It's only the delivery of the performers that turns the sort of basic one-liners into funny and entertaining dialogue. Cinematography is by Adrian Biddle, whose work I've enjoyed in past films(the cold, stylish "Event Horizon") and also, James Cameron's "Aliens".) In "The Mummy" he brings a sort of grand-scale look to the film and captures the breathtaking scenery well.
I was certainly entertained while I was watching the movie, but it's fairly forgetable once you leave the theater. It's a rapid-fire effects film, full of so much in the way of visuals, but not much in the way of a memorable character or grand scene not driven by effects. The film goes on and on, heading at a lightning pace towards it's inevitable conclusion and as much as I admired the technical skill and the performances that brought this movie to the screen, there was just a point where you say to yourself, "Wait... this is still going?" There could have been some tightening on this film, bringing it down around 15-20 minutes to a sharp, fast film that doesn't wear out its welcome. I liked and even loved a lot of "The Mummy", but after awhile I found myself saying, "enough already."
The DVD VIDEO: This is an absolutely phenomenal anamorphic transfer from Universal. It's been a wonderful last couple of weeks reviewing titles. First the nearly flawless transfer for "Prince Of Egypt" and now a similarly breathtaking transfer for "The Mummy". The golden colors of the desert are rendered outstandingly here, with incredibly deep, rich colors that are nothing short of beautiful. Colors are also very well-saturated and never exhibit any instances of bleeding. Contrast is absolutely perfect in this transfer, as well.
Images are consistently razor sharp and clear, with detail that is always excellent and occasionally breathaking. There's absolutely no problems here with the print used, no scratches or anything like that. Images are simply crystal clear throughout, with no pixelization and only a couple of tiny instances of shimmering. Adrian Biddle's cinematography is presented fantastically here. No complaints at all here.
SOUND: This is a wide, wonderful soundstage that places emphasis on Jerry Goldsmith's score, while sound effects are also placed with great care and detail. This is a thrillingly enveloping sound mix, with some fun and exciting uses of surrounds and the usual deep bass that you can expect from any good action movie. Dialogue is clearer and fuller here than any movie I've watched in memory. Even during the action, dialogue stays clear. Excellent work from Universal.
MENUS: Universal has put together some very cool animated menus for this disc and what I really enjoyed was that there are less menus to go through for the special features. The last couple of Universal special editions seem to have the special features spread over a couple of screens. What I don't care for isn't really the menus fault- you have to go back to the menus when you want to switch from the commentary to the film's audio track, you can't switch between them on the remote.
EXTRAS::
Commentary: This is a commentary from director Stephen Sommers and editor Bob Duscay, who, as we learn in the begining of the track, have been working together for 12 years since they attended film school together. They have a fun time together and manage to be informative as well, reminding me of a similar track where the two commentators had worked together for years("The Usual Suspects"'s Christopher McQuarrie and Bryan Singer). I also really liked the fact that these two seem to know quite a lot about the kind of special effects work that went into the making of this picture and are able to talk about who did the effects(mainly Industrial Light&Magic) and what kind of effects were used in each sequence. There's been plenty of effects films where I've wanted to hear more about the effects and either it seemed as if the speaker didn't know much about the effects work that went on(director Vincent Ward for "What Dreams May Come") or the speaker does know about the effects and unfortunately, talked about other things completely("Pleasantville"'s Gary Ross). Here, the two go into excellent detail on the subject and I was pleased.
The two are very funny together in the commentary and provide quite a lot of informative and technical information about scenes that were filmed, such as how the opening battle with Fraser was staged. There's also quite a lot of talk about the original concepts for the story and what it was like working with the actors and numerous extras. There's also some cool information about where all the various locations were filmed.
There are very few pauses during this track and I really think this is one of the most informative and entertaining commentaries I've heard lately. I'm usually very kind to almost any commentaries(since I love them), but there have been some "fair" ones lately("The Matrix"), but this really is a fast, funny talk from the director and editor.
"Building a Better Mummy": This documentary, which runs a little short of an hour, spends some time on detailing the history of the original "Mummy" and the ideas and concepts of the new movie, before going full-on into the details of how the special effects were built. Personally, I'm glad that this documentary(after a short opening) went into the technology. I really don't want to watch interviews for nearly an hour and I think that's where most of these documentaries seem to head.
This documentary takes a look at not only the work that ILM did in this picture(and quite excellent work it is!), but the artwork and the model work as well. This is a really enjoyable feature- although it's a very well produced promotional featurette, it really doesn't just have a lot of people going "this movie is sooooo wonderful like a lot of the documentaries, but really gives the focus to the people who made this "Mummy" possible. The ILM work that's shown here is simply fascinating. Very cool stuff.
Deleted Scenes: A couple of minutes worth of very minimal scenes, nothing that should have found it's way into the movie. And with the talk about how much was cut out of the movie in the commentary, it's kind of unfortunate that more was not included. What's here are only a couple of very small scenes.
Trailers: Both theatrical trailers for "The Mummy" are included, as well as the trailers for "For Love Of The Game" and the upcoming Universal thriller "End Of Days". The "Game" and "Days" trailers are included in the Universal Showcase. Plus, if you look in Fraser's and Vosloo's biography notes, you can find the trailers for "Gods and Monsters" and "Darkman 2".
Visual FX Formation: This is somewhat like an expanded, documentary-style edition of the effects stages that were shown on Universal's "Dante's Peak" DVD that took the viewer through all of the stages that went into a scene that used effects. On "The Mummy"'s DVD, five scenes of the film are broken up into the various sections of the effects, from the basic concepts, to the added effects that are built in to reach the final look of an effects scene. There's a look an the digital composites used, the animatic scenes that show the original concepts of these scenes, some of the original photography that effects were built around and more. The documentary pieces vary in length from a couple of minutes to about 30 seconds or so. All in all, there's quite a lot to look through in this section, a fascinating amount of technical detail that's narrated during each section by FX supervisor John Berton, who takes the viewer through each stage of the effects.
Egyptology 101:(Can I get college history credit for watching this?). Really, this is a major library of text screens, broken up into different subjects about Egyptian history. There's quite a ton to look through and it's all quite interesting.
Other Text Notes:: Enjoyable and extensive cast and crew bios, as well as production notes.
DVD-ROM: A "Mummy" game, screensavers and postcards.
Last, But Not Least: On the languages menu, the isolated score plays out in the background. I don't know why it was done like this, but there's where it is.
Final Thoughts: I think Universal has done an outstanding job with their release of "The Mummy". Not only is this a fun flick, but I think that the audio and especially the video quality here are top notch. The commentary and the extras are also quite enjoyable as well. Definitely very highly recommended.
"The Mummy" is one of those films that starts off rather promisingly. The performances are enjoyable, the effects are incredible and the film has an air about it that seems to not take itself that seriously. There are a few moments here and there of grand action in the first half; enough to satisfy. The second half though, begins to become too much. It throws every last bit of effects at you. It's very loud, it's flashy and to a point, it's entertaining. I just wish it would stop for a fraction of a second. After a while, the film turns to overload; it felt as if I was being battered and bruised by an onslaught of special effects and sheer sound volume.
The film is sort of a remake of the 1932 film starring Boris Karloff, but this time it's all about the effects. Suprisingly though, I found the performances quite enjoyable as well. The story begins with a tale about the Egyptian priest, Imhotep, who is carrying on an affair with the Pharaoh's mistress. The two get away with murdering the Pharaoh, but he doesn't get away from the Pharaoh's guards, who mummify him and bury him alive, along with a batch of flesh-eating beatles, who are sort of like great ancestors of the bugs from "Starship Troopers".
Flash forward to the present, where we meet our hero, Rick O'Connell(Brendan Fraser) who is fighting off an entire army almost single-handedly at the site of Hamunaptra, where the Mummy was buried. After getting the hint that evil lurks about, Rick leaves the city only to find himself in trouble again, about to be hanged for causing problems in Cairo. Coming to his aid are an adorably goofy young librarian(Rachel Wiesz) and her brother("Sliding Doors"'s John Hannah in an excellent performance); the two want to be taken to Hamunaptra to search for lost artifacts and Rick agrees to lead the way. They're joined in the search by a group of American treasure hunters eager to find the fortune for themselves. Watching over all of them are a band of guards in black robes, people who have been there for all time to make sure that Imhotep stays put. Of course, the audience knows that it's only a matter of time before the Mummy is released and when he does, he's not too happy.
The band of adventurers now find themselves scrambling to escape everything the Mummy throws at them; various plagues, other Mummies and even those funky beatles make appearances throughout the film, crawling under people's flesh and eating them from the insides. As the film continues, the Mummy grows ever more powerful, taking the body parts he needs from his victims. And since the Mummy can only be slowed down, not killed by gunfire, it's up to the heros to find what will put him back in his place.
The film has a certain charm that I was suprised to find; it truly doesn't take itself seriously and that certainly works to get past the screenplay, which isn't that poor compared to other recent action films, but it certainly isn't art. Where it doesn't help is during the action, where it doesn't quite achive the right balance between convincing the audience that the enemy is something to be feared and scared by and convincing the audience that this is just one big amusement park ride; all in the name of entertainment. It's not quite to the level of success that the "Indiana Jones" series had; it's more like, "Son Of Indy" or "Indiana Jones, Jr." It tries to be "Indiana Jones", with the humor of Sam Raimi's classic horror film, "Army Of Darkness".
There are certainly things that work well, though. Brendan Fraser, who has so far made a living out of slow, goofy characters has sort of sharpened the "goofiness" into a quick, funny and lively performance. He certainly makes a better action hero than a boy who's lived in a fallout shelter till he was 30(the recent "Blast From The Past"). Rachel Weisz is onhand as a librarian with a fascination about Egypt that joins Fraser's Rick for the ride. She tries well, but she doesn't quite hit the right comedic note that the character calls for. The most successful performance at times is from John Hannah, who was recently seen in "Sliding Doors". His performance as Jonathan is witty, sarcastic and hilarious, hitting the right sort of comedic timing that the movie calls for. There are few funnier scenes this year than when Hannah's Jonathan tries to "blend in" with Imhotep's new army.
There's a point though, where less here would be more. It all starts off nicely structured with the occasional action scene thrown into the basic story set-up to keep us interested while the film gets to it's point. It finally does get to the point, then keeps screaming it at us, as loud as the roar of the title character. Once "The Mummy" hits the halfway point, the action really begins; the second half is scene after intense scene involving stunts, effects, and even the wall of sand that made an appearance in the trailer. After awhile, it throws so much at the audience that it gets tiring; after a point the film simply never stops and has a pace that makes "Speed" feel like a walk in the park. It's sort of interesting though that as basic as the film's plot is, every moment is designed to push the audience screaming into a state of overload. There's so much going on here, there are even plot points that seem to have fallen off the roller-coaster. We find out Imhotep is scared of cats mid-film, then the idea is never brought up again. Maybe there weren't enough pet stores in Anicent Egypt, who knows.
That's part of the problem. The director, Stephen Sommers("Deep Rising") also wrote the film. He does a very good job moving the film along like a train about to fall off the tracks, but the writing isn't great. It's only the delivery of the performers that turns the sort of basic one-liners into funny and entertaining dialogue. Cinematography is by Adrian Biddle, whose work I've enjoyed in past films(the cold, stylish "Event Horizon") and also, James Cameron's "Aliens".) In "The Mummy" he brings a sort of grand-scale look to the film and captures the breathtaking scenery well.
I was certainly entertained while I was watching the movie, but it's fairly forgetable once you leave the theater. It's a rapid-fire effects film, full of so much in the way of visuals, but not much in the way of a memorable character or grand scene not driven by effects. The film goes on and on, heading at a lightning pace towards it's inevitable conclusion and as much as I admired the technical skill and the performances that brought this movie to the screen, there was just a point where you say to yourself, "Wait... this is still going?" There could have been some tightening on this film, bringing it down around 15-20 minutes to a sharp, fast film that doesn't wear out its welcome. I liked and even loved a lot of "The Mummy", but after awhile I found myself saying, "enough already."
The DVD VIDEO: This is an absolutely phenomenal anamorphic transfer from Universal. It's been a wonderful last couple of weeks reviewing titles. First the nearly flawless transfer for "Prince Of Egypt" and now a similarly breathtaking transfer for "The Mummy". The golden colors of the desert are rendered outstandingly here, with incredibly deep, rich colors that are nothing short of beautiful. Colors are also very well-saturated and never exhibit any instances of bleeding. Contrast is absolutely perfect in this transfer, as well.
Images are consistently razor sharp and clear, with detail that is always excellent and occasionally breathaking. There's absolutely no problems here with the print used, no scratches or anything like that. Images are simply crystal clear throughout, with no pixelization and only a couple of tiny instances of shimmering. Adrian Biddle's cinematography is presented fantastically here. No complaints at all here.
SOUND: This is a wide, wonderful soundstage that places emphasis on Jerry Goldsmith's score, while sound effects are also placed with great care and detail. This is a thrillingly enveloping sound mix, with some fun and exciting uses of surrounds and the usual deep bass that you can expect from any good action movie. Dialogue is clearer and fuller here than any movie I've watched in memory. Even during the action, dialogue stays clear. Excellent work from Universal.
MENUS: Universal has put together some very cool animated menus for this disc and what I really enjoyed was that there are less menus to go through for the special features. The last couple of Universal special editions seem to have the special features spread over a couple of screens. What I don't care for isn't really the menus fault- you have to go back to the menus when you want to switch from the commentary to the film's audio track, you can't switch between them on the remote.
EXTRAS::
Commentary: This is a commentary from director Stephen Sommers and editor Bob Duscay, who, as we learn in the begining of the track, have been working together for 12 years since they attended film school together. They have a fun time together and manage to be informative as well, reminding me of a similar track where the two commentators had worked together for years("The Usual Suspects"'s Christopher McQuarrie and Bryan Singer). I also really liked the fact that these two seem to know quite a lot about the kind of special effects work that went into the making of this picture and are able to talk about who did the effects(mainly Industrial Light&Magic) and what kind of effects were used in each sequence. There's been plenty of effects films where I've wanted to hear more about the effects and either it seemed as if the speaker didn't know much about the effects work that went on(director Vincent Ward for "What Dreams May Come") or the speaker does know about the effects and unfortunately, talked about other things completely("Pleasantville"'s Gary Ross). Here, the two go into excellent detail on the subject and I was pleased.
The two are very funny together in the commentary and provide quite a lot of informative and technical information about scenes that were filmed, such as how the opening battle with Fraser was staged. There's also quite a lot of talk about the original concepts for the story and what it was like working with the actors and numerous extras. There's also some cool information about where all the various locations were filmed.
There are very few pauses during this track and I really think this is one of the most informative and entertaining commentaries I've heard lately. I'm usually very kind to almost any commentaries(since I love them), but there have been some "fair" ones lately("The Matrix"), but this really is a fast, funny talk from the director and editor.
"Building a Better Mummy": This documentary, which runs a little short of an hour, spends some time on detailing the history of the original "Mummy" and the ideas and concepts of the new movie, before going full-on into the details of how the special effects were built. Personally, I'm glad that this documentary(after a short opening) went into the technology. I really don't want to watch interviews for nearly an hour and I think that's where most of these documentaries seem to head.
This documentary takes a look at not only the work that ILM did in this picture(and quite excellent work it is!), but the artwork and the model work as well. This is a really enjoyable feature- although it's a very well produced promotional featurette, it really doesn't just have a lot of people going "this movie is sooooo wonderful like a lot of the documentaries, but really gives the focus to the people who made this "Mummy" possible. The ILM work that's shown here is simply fascinating. Very cool stuff.
Deleted Scenes: A couple of minutes worth of very minimal scenes, nothing that should have found it's way into the movie. And with the talk about how much was cut out of the movie in the commentary, it's kind of unfortunate that more was not included. What's here are only a couple of very small scenes.
Trailers: Both theatrical trailers for "The Mummy" are included, as well as the trailers for "For Love Of The Game" and the upcoming Universal thriller "End Of Days". The "Game" and "Days" trailers are included in the Universal Showcase. Plus, if you look in Fraser's and Vosloo's biography notes, you can find the trailers for "Gods and Monsters" and "Darkman 2".
Visual FX Formation: This is somewhat like an expanded, documentary-style edition of the effects stages that were shown on Universal's "Dante's Peak" DVD that took the viewer through all of the stages that went into a scene that used effects. On "The Mummy"'s DVD, five scenes of the film are broken up into the various sections of the effects, from the basic concepts, to the added effects that are built in to reach the final look of an effects scene. There's a look an the digital composites used, the animatic scenes that show the original concepts of these scenes, some of the original photography that effects were built around and more. The documentary pieces vary in length from a couple of minutes to about 30 seconds or so. All in all, there's quite a lot to look through in this section, a fascinating amount of technical detail that's narrated during each section by FX supervisor John Berton, who takes the viewer through each stage of the effects.
Egyptology 101:(Can I get college history credit for watching this?). Really, this is a major library of text screens, broken up into different subjects about Egyptian history. There's quite a ton to look through and it's all quite interesting.
Other Text Notes:: Enjoyable and extensive cast and crew bios, as well as production notes.
DVD-ROM: A "Mummy" game, screensavers and postcards.
Last, But Not Least: On the languages menu, the isolated score plays out in the background. I don't know why it was done like this, but there's where it is.
Final Thoughts: I think Universal has done an outstanding job with their release of "The Mummy". Not only is this a fun flick, but I think that the audio and especially the video quality here are top notch. The commentary and the extras are also quite enjoyable as well. Definitely very highly recommended.
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