The Mummy Review
by "Luke Buckmaster" (bucky AT alphalink DOT com DOT au)July 12th, 1999
THE MUMMY
Cast: Brendan Fraser, John Hannah, Rachel Weisz, Arnold Vosloo, Stephen Dunham, Jonathan Hyde, Corey Johnson, Kevin J. O'Connor, Tuc Watkins Director: Stephen Sommers
Screenplay: Stephen Sommers
Reviewed by Luke Buckmaster
On the Buckmaster scale of 0 stars (bomb), to 5 stars (a masterpiece): 2 and a half stars
Sure, there's plenty of action, a lot of cool special effects and some good looking leads, but somewhere along the line The Mummy lost my winning vote. Perhaps it was the film's absence of a good villain and a thrilling climax, or maybe it was because the whole darn thing was just too exhausting. During the first hour or so of the film, I was convinced that it embodied few elements of standard Hollywood big-budget movies. But sure enough, The Mummy does eventually succumb to formulaic filmmaking and, to make matters worse, draws its climax out so long that you begin to forget what the hell the heroes were fighting for. There are plenty of scenes of pure carnage - all of which are staged quite nicely - that brought back faint recollections of a far superior film, >From Dusk Till Dawn, which succeeded in almost revolutionizing the horror genre due to its total disregard for conventional filmmaking.
Well, The Mummy hasn’t exactly done that, but it didn’t need to. It’s one of those films that are so obviously written to be commercially successful - often at the expense of any artistic merit - and usually leave most audiences content after viewing the plot elements that they have come to expect and appreciate. But The Mummy did not always entertain me, and only occasionally intrigued me. A couple of good reasons to see the film are its special effects, which bring atmosphere into the picture, and Brendan Fraser’s comically heroic performance which indeed reminds us that we will be seeing a lot more of him in the future. You might enjoy seeing The Mummy just for its special effects, but on these merits, The Phantom Menace is a masterpiece.
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Review © copyright Luke Buckmaster
Read more of my reviews at In Film Australia
http://infilmau.iah.net
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
