First of all though, if you haven't seen 1999's The Mummy, make sure to rent and watch it before going to see this sequel. The movie has only the barest sliver of a plot and the director clearly felt that character development had been sufficiently handled in that first film and felt no need to do any more of it. Eliminating plot and character development leaves lots of time free for special effects and action sequences. And that is really all this movie is, special effects and action. If that's all you care about then this movie is a treasure trove. I suspect however that even the most forgiving viewer will find this movie badly lacking in story and substance.
Ten years have passed since the first movie. Our heroes, Evie (Weisz) and Rick (Fraser) have moved back to London where they have married and had a son Alex. They now seem to have a successful career as grave robbers. Oh sure they call it archeology but they bust their way into tombs with little concern for scientific process or the preservation of what they are supposedly exploring. Anyway, they dig up a bracelet belonging to an ancient Egyptian known as the Scorpion King. In the first few minutes of the movie we get to see him in action. Played by the pro wrestler The Rock, the Scorpion King leads his men into war. He proves a poor leader though and is repelled. Desperate for revenge he calls on Anubis, god of the underworld, to let him defeat his enemies in exchange for his soul. Apparently the writers confused Anubis with Satan.
Back in London, Alex is kidnapped by a group seeking to revive Imhotep (Vosloo), the mummy from the first movie. They want the Scorpion King's bracelet and the kid has foolishly gotten stuck with it on. Imhotep wants the bracelet so he can revive the Scorpion King, defeat him in battle and then assume control of his demonic army. Make sense? Only barely in this condensed form and it makes considerably less sense over the movie's rather lengthy running time.
I could go on forever about things like characters that are about as deep as cardboard cutouts and have indecipherable motives. Instead, let's just assume these things are bad and move on. I'd rather talk about the weird self-awareness of the characters that makes the movie almost a parody of itself. Evie and Rick are incessantly having discussions about the problems that face them and why these are just more of the same end of the world threats that seem to be a typical part of their life. Maybe the idea was to remind us so much of the previous and more entertaining movie that we'll forget about this movie, thus substituting our feelings for that first movie in place of this one. Okay maybe I'm reaching here but at least half of the dialog is something along these lines. Then you have Evie's brother John (Hannah) who spends the movie creating a caricature of his character from the first movie. He simply can't say enough about what a coward he is.
There are a lot of laughs in the movie and some of them are even intentional. Most are the kind where you see something we're supposed to take seriously that is so ridiculous that you have to laugh. For instance the pygmy mummies that terrorize the heroes and villains alike are a riot. Somehow I suspect that wasn't the intention however. A few laughs though are intentional. I really liked a sequence when the kid drives his kidnapper crazy by constantly asking "Are we there yet?"
You wrestling fans shouldn't get to excited about The Rock's starring role. He makes a short, largely dialog free appearance at the beginning of the movie. He returns late in the movie. Well actually just his face returns. It is part of an animated monster that terrorizes our heroes. It's an impressive creature but that human face isn't animated well enough to be truly convincing which unfortunately makes the entire critter seem phony.
This brings up the quality of the special effects. I'm sorry to say that they aren't always as sharp as I'd like. The demonic army of Anubis clones look fairly good in close-up but when they charge as an army, all their legs move at the same time, making them seem like repeated computer images, which is exactly what they are. There are lots more of the nasty scarab beetles from the first movie but they are so over used that it's nearly impossible to get a sense of them as creatures. It's more like a big black evil wave.
I could go on and on about the movie's many problems. It really doesn't seem worth the effort though. This movie is meant to draw monstrous crowds with tons of action and special effects. This it does. It wasn't meant to be anything more than that and unapologetically fills up the screen with wild imagery with little hope of any thought to make these things mean something to us. If that sounds good to you, by all means go see it. The rest of you can safely stay home or head to a different movie.
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