I wanted something fun and dumb with good special effects last year, so I saw the first new “Mummy” movie with Brendan Fraser. What I got was a surprisingly tongue-in-cheek fantasy adventure, with great special effects and a pretty engaging story– like a low-rent, yet amusing Indiana Jones movie. So I was actually pretty fired up for its much-hyped sequel.
Boy, was I disappointed. There are a lot of special effects in this one. So many, in fact, that they forgot to write a screenplay. It’s really just a bunch of action set pieces strung together by lots of coincidences. Brendan Fraser was funny in the original, playing a hard luck loser cracking wise at every unbelievable turn. But in the sequel, he’s already been through this before, so he’s not nearly as funny. And his unoriginal bad jokes fall flat this time.
Rachel Weisz is incredibly sexy, but way too much of a badass for a former librarian. WWF’s The Rock even turns up as a half-baked bad special effect in the final act! The unbelievability of the first “Mummy” movie 2 years ago was part of why it was so funny. It was like the characters were winking at you the whole time. “The Mummy Returns” buckles under the pressure of following up a successful film, and ends up being a two hour bore. I’m not trying to compare it to “The Godfather” either. It’s just too bad that it commits the one sin a good popcorn miovie doesn’t want to make. It’s simply no fun.
Eric is the Editor-in-Chief of Scene-Stealers.com, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and contributor for The Pitch. He’s former President of the KCFCC, and drummer for The Dead Girls, Ultimate Fakebook, and Truck Stop Love . He is also the 2013 Air Guitar World Champion Mean Melin, ranked 4th best of all-time. Eric goes to 11. Follow him at:
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