The Mummy (1999) Review

The Mummy (1999) Review
Director: Stephen Sommers
Writer: Stephen Sommers
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Oded Fehr, Kevin J. O’Connor
Release Date: May 7, 1999
Runtime: 2 hours 4 minutes

With a new Mummy film hitting theaters next week, it felt like the right time to revisit the one that set the modern standard for the franchise, and twenty-five years later The Mummy holds up remarkably well. This is one of the most purely enjoyable adventure films of the late 1990s, and it isn’t all that close. Also, it’s a great time to kick off my new Throwback Thursday weekly review series: every Thursday (hopefully), a new review of a 1990’s or earlier film.

The setup is straightforward action-adventure. Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) is a roguish American legionnaire who ends up leading an expedition to Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, alongside librarian Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) and her scheming, cowardly brother Jonathan (John Hannah). In the process, they accidentally resurrect Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), an ancient Egyptian high priest who was buried alive and cursed thousands of years ago for murdering the Pharaoh and attempting to resurrect his forbidden lover. Imhotep is now loose, regenerating by absorbing the bodies of the unfortunate souls who opened his tomb, and is very much intent on finishing what he started. Rick, Evelyn, and Jonathan have to stop him before he completes the ritual and brings about the apocalypse.

It is a movie that knows exactly what it is and does not apologize for it for it. Stephen Sommers set out to make something in the spirit of Indiana Jones (a big, fun, action-packed adventure with a healthy sense of humor and genuine heart), and he delivered on every count. The action sequences are well-staged and exciting, the pacing barely lets you catch your breath, and the whole thing moves with a propulsive energy that makes two hours feel like ninety minutes.

But what makes The Mummy really great rather than just good is the cast and the chemistry between them. Brendan Fraser is excellent here. This is one of his best performances and a reminder of why he was such a compelling leading man at this point in his career. Rick O’Connell is charming, funny, physically credible, and heroic without ever being boring. Fraser plays him with an easy confidence and a dry wit that makes every scene he is in better, and his chemistry with Weisz is the engine that the whole film runs on.

Rachel Weisz as Evelyn is equally good. She takes what could have been a standard damsel-in-distress role and makes Evelyn a fully realized character. She’s somewhat clumsy and bookish and earnest in a way that is endearing, and more capable than she initially appears. The romance between her and Rick develops naturally rather than feeling forced, and by the time the film needs you to be invested in it, you are.

John Hannah as Jonathan is the comic relief done right. He is cowardly and selfish and perpetually in over his head, and Hannah plays all of that with such committed timing that nearly every line he delivers lands. The same kind of comedic charm that Hannah would later bring to the Spartacus series as Batiatus (just without all the swearing). The supporting cast holds up throughout: Kevin J. O’Connor as Beni, Rick’s treacherous former comrade, is reliably slimy and fun, and Oded Fehr as the mysterious Ardeth Bay brings a cool, stoic energy to the film’s more serious moments.

Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep deserves more credit than he typically gets when people talk about this film. It would have been easy to play the villain as a standard unstoppable monster and leave it at that, but Vosloo brings a tragic dimension to the role. Imhotep is terrifying (the practical and digital effects work that brings him to life during his regeneration sequences is still impressive today), but he is also a man who loved someone deeply enough to commit blasphemy against the gods for her, and Vosloo never lets you forget that. His obsession with resurrecting Anck-su-Namun, played with cold, seductive menace by Patricia Velasquez, gives the film a villain with actual motivation rather than just a force of destruction. The love story at the dark heart of the plot mirrors the romance developing between Rick and Evelyn, and that parallel is what gives The Mummy more emotional weight than you might expect from a big summer action picture.

Of all the Mummy films that have followed — The Mummy Returns, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the ill-fated 2017 Tom Cruise version — none of them have come close to capturing what made the 1999 original work. The sequels got bigger and louder and progressively worse, and the reboot was a disaster that tried to turn the franchise into something it was never meant to be. The original succeeded because it had the right cast, the right tone, and a director who understood that a film like this lives or dies on fun.

It is still the best Mummy film by a comfortable margin. And it’s one worth owning in your physical media collection on 4K Blu-ray.

The Mummy gets a four out of five: GREAT.