The Mummy
(1999)
If The
Matrix was the zeitgeist-defining event of the summer of 1999, having a
surplus of vitality and resonance that left The
Phantom Menace looking bloated and
stranded, there was another pretender to the blockbuster crown that no one
expected to be a sizable hit. One might argue that The Matrix captured something of the “never seen before” quality of
the first Star Wars film. If it did, The Mummy was merely content to fill the
gap in the audience’s desire for an Indiana
Jones knock-off. Any knock-off would do, which goes some way to explaining
how such an average film became the third biggest genre movie that wasn’t The Sixth Sense that season.
It ended up in eighth place in for the year
(sixth worldwide) and guaranteed a quickly thrown-together sequel (that looked
shoddy even by its director’s slipshod standards). Curiously, while that film
was bigger in the US, international audiences seemed aware of its inferiority
and it didn’t do so well. But still, this was a successful franchise and
surprisingly it took another seven years before a third installment arrived. In
the same year that it’s true inspiration (Indy,
rather than the horror series that bequeathed the title and, loosely, the
subject matter) made a lacklustre return to the screen.
Make no mistake, The Mummy is a family action movie. What trappings of horror there
are, are so diluted by their CGI presentation as to be nigh on inconsequential;
this is as scary as Scooby Doo. Universal’s
plan to relaunch of one of its major monsters had gone through a number of
directors over the previous decade, including Clive Barker, George Romero and
Joe Dante. All of whom would surely have brought something more interesting to
the screen that Stephen Sommers’ reheated leftovers.
Yes, Stephen Sommers. Who would go on to
such resounding failure with the rest of the studio’s creatures in the
overblown disaster that is Van Helsing.
With the success of The Adventure s of
Huck Finn and The Jungle Book
(and the failure of the surprisingly good fun Deep Rising) behind him, Sommers had sufficient clout to demand a
significant budget (previous plans had been to spend as little as feasible, one
of the reasons, horror content being an other, that so many filmmakers exited
the project).
There are no less than six credited writers
attached to the screenplay (including John L Balderston’s for the 1932
original), but you wouldn’t have guessed. This comes across as a typically
Sommers-like first draft affair, incoherent of structure and crassly witless of
dialogue. There isn’t much you’d think could go wrong; the prologue introduces
High Priest Imhotep reasonably well, before leaping to 1926 and Rick
O’Connell’s (Brendan Fraser) encounter with supernatural forces at the site of
his tomb. A few years later he leads an expedition back there, including Rachel
Weisz and John Hannah’s brother and sister duo, some fellow Americans and dodgy
comedy Arab Beni Gabor (Kevin J O’Connor).
But Sommers fluffs the plot logic every
step of the way. Rather than killing or expelling them, the Medjai who guard
the tomb give the group 24 hours to leave. Which, of course, is more than
enough time to unleash Imhotep’s evil upon the world. Later, we suddenly leap
back to Cairo for more frenetic carnage. When the tone is so shallow and the
pace so furious, there’s no time for character or the building up of
atmosphere. If Indiana Jones added layers and depth to the classic Republic
serials, The Mummy is closer to the strained
gag fests of Abbot and Costello meet…
(the broad tone – everything in this
film is broad – is set from the outset in an excruciatingly elaborate gag where
clumsy librarian Weisz causes the domino toppling of a series of bookcases).
It’s also a problem when the menace in your
film as is an onslaught of very obvious CGI. This would reach a nadir in the
sequel, but the scares amount to a bug-eyed mummy with a stretchy jaw, furious
sandstorms and swarms of scarabs cascading over everything in their path. Maybe
an undiscerning nipper would be bothered (although, this was a 12/PG-13, so a
tot isn’t the target audience). None of its is very tangible, even given the
creepiness of some of the ideas (creepy crawlies getting under your skin is
very potent, but has little impact on screen). Arnold Vosloo has an imperious
presence, but his villainy is undercooked and not really very interesting.
The trio of Fraser, Weisz and Hannah are
agreeable, however. Fraser has sufficient sense of humour to embrace a part
like this, even if he lacks any edge as an actor (can anyone recall a memorable
role for him since, say, Looney Tunes?)
Hannah follows the line of less-than-admirable Brits that Terry-Thomas excelled
at; it’s just a shame that the writing isn’t up to snuff. Weisz suffers most
obviously from a role that runs the gamut from B to B in development, playing
the plucky gal who swoons for the adventurer hero (no wonder she didn’t return
for the third movie). As for Connor’s
Beni, he’s clearly having enormous fun and it’s certainly a scene-stealer. But
it’s closer to Jar Jar Binks as a treasure trove of laughs than anything
approaching great comic villainy.
The problem with the movie, and his
directorial efforts in general, is Sommers just doesn’t care about anything
that isn’t in aid of the deliriously giddy momentum he’s pursuing. He’s like
the sugar rush kid in need of a fix; that The
Mummy is decidedly subdued in comparison to subsequent films tells you all
you need to know about his appetite for bigger, broader, emptier. The period
trappings have none of the weight of the Indy
films because the director’s sensibility is entirely contemporary; that’s how
he shoots the film, writes the dialogue and directs the actors. All of which
means that The Mummy is an
effective-enough crowd-pleaser but it’s not something you’ll feel the need to
revisit (which beckons the question of why I did!)
**1/2
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