This weekend, I had the privilege of watching The Mummy in theaters for the first time. When the film was first released in 1999, I was just a little too young and didn’t get the full popcorn flick experience. Instead, I waited for the mythical day when Blockbuster got the VHS. Since that first viewing, I have loved this film for its simplicity, humor, and action-packed adventure sensibilities. Yes, the CGI was done when filmmakers were too busy asking if they could, to stop and wonder if they should, but there are enough practical effects to buoy the aging digital sequences. With the addition of an amazing score and fantastic casting, The Mummy holds up as one of the best adventure films of the last 30 years.
Universal has been trying to start up a Monsters Universe for over a decade now including a god-awful reboot of The Mummy with Tom Cruise in 2017. Over several false starts, it’s clear that they have struggled to find the secret sauce that made so many of their earlier films great. In my opinion, the issue is twofold: 1. Trying to set up a cinematic universe rarely makes for engaging individual movies (with rare exceptions). 2. The Monsterverse movies take themselves way too seriously. The Mummy (1999) doesn’t fall into that trap. It’s scary when it needs to be scary, funny when it needs to be funny, and doesn’t get too bogged down in creating a universe of lore. This is a film where the incantation to raise an unholy, world-ending mummy is on the first page of the Book of the Dead, and control spells for an army of undead soldiers are on the cover.
The best part is none of the humor or camp diminishes The Mummy’s horror sequences. Even 25 years later, the jump scares still hit and the horror of watching a man eaten from the inside out by scarabs is still just as disgusting. Sure, the digital effects behind these scenes aren’t the best, but they’re not so bad as to be distracting (unlike The Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns). Thankfully, much of Imhotep’s dirty work is done through silhouettes and shadows, giving the audience glimpses of what it might be like to be sucked dry by a mummy without ever showing it (another mistake made in The Mummy Returns). Whether or not this was intentional, it led to a better movie.
Additionally, the cast is phenomenal. The two leads have now both gone on to win Academy Awards, and I can confidently say little of that acting talent is displayed here. Every role is over the top, tropey, and a caricature of an actual person. It sets the tone that this is not a serious movie, it’s a fun movie. There aren’t any deep backstories behind these characters other than the fact that they want to hunt treasure and enjoy a good gunfight. Brendan Frasier’s Rick O’Connell is one of the primary inspirations behind the protagonist of my monster-hunting novel series, The Nick Ventner Adventures (purchase here). He is an engaging scoundrel with amazing one-liners and great physical comedy.
If you haven’t seen this movie, it’s going to be playing in theaters until May 9th (4 more days as of this writing). In a world that’s filled with easily accessible CGI, it’s fun to step back and see what filmmakers were doing at the beginning of the boom. Everything about the film is over-the-top, but it fits the aesthetic and makes for a fun viewing experience. As Universal continues to get its Monsterverse off the ground—they’re building a whole theme park land for it in Florida—I hope they reconsider this iconic film. Who knows? With Brendan Frasier’s recent Oscar and the 25th-anniversary re-release making over a million dollars at the box office, maybe we’ll get a proper reboot. There’s never a shortage of dusty tombs for Rick O’Connell to explore.
Rating 5/5 – Yes, hefty dose of nostalgia, and I’m biased to the underworld and back, but this is a damned good movie.
But while we wait on that reboot, why not check out some great action-adventure reading that was heavily inspired by this film series? The Nick Ventner Adventures are my homage to simple adventure films like The Mummy and Indiana Jones. Nick Ventner is a drunk who is damned good at hunting things that shouldn’t exist. Whiteout, his first adventure, sees him racing through the Himalayas in search of the mythical yeti. Downpour, the sequel, is all about the creatures hiding in the South American jungle and a journey to the Land of the Dead. Both are highly rated and available anywhere books are sold. If you buy them directly from my website, they come signed, and all proceeds go to charity.
Ashton Macaulay 