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A young archaeologist-couple (Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connell and Rachel Weisz as Evelyn
Carnavon-O'Connell) with an eight-year-old son (Freddie Boath as Alex) are searching for the golden bracelet, buried somewhere among the crevices of the pyramids. The
bracelet—which belonged to Anubis, god of the underworld –has the power to resurrect the Scorpion King (The Rock), erstwhile conqueror of the known world, who would in
turn lead his resurrected army to conquer the world anew. It is this disaster that the O'Connells are trying to prevent. But they're not the only ones after the
magical bracelet—there are other groups that covet it, and for other reasons.
When you have a movie with a plot so thin, you need a feast for the eyes to keep the audience
awake. Which is what The Mummy Returns
does. Between all those resurrections and reincarnations of this and that character, the story is bound to weary the viewer. The movie needs marvelous, fantastic, splendiferous gimmicks to distract you from its emptiness. There's hardly a scene without a computer-generated creature to steal your attention away from the story. In fact, you as the viewer may soon let go of the plot in favor of unraveling the wonders of the computerized scene-stealers. You may simply find yourself guessing which of those human soldiers are real and which owe their existence to high tech. You may ask yourself how computer geniuses made those dog-men warriors (which crawl on the desert like battalions of ants and turn into sand when injured). You may marvel at how palm trees and other oasis greenery sprout from pure sand faster than you can say, "Let there be trees!" As for the acting—what lead actor needs to act when the supporting actor is a monstrous scorpion that's half Hollywood star and half mechanical beast? Better forget about the story, sit back, and just enjoy the gimmicks—or the costumes, the choreography, and the haunting beauty of the actresses' faces captured in the close-up shots.
Clearly, this movie was made for kids, especially kids who are fans of computer games.
The insertion of a child character in the story points to that. You don't have to think to appreciate the movie; if you can get carried away watching real people
interact with computer creations you'll be satisfied with this one. What do you stand to learn from the movie? If you care to search for the proverbial needle in
the haystack, you just might see the goodness in being a family—father, mother, child—working together, being together. You might also get to realize that anytime,
anywhere, there will always be evil men with evil designs on the world. Thus, the need to be in touch with Good, with God. If we want to keep that God alive in us,
we'd better take care that we don't make a God created by a computer.
(Date reviewed: May 25, 2001)
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