Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 7-December-03
Spoiler Rating: Medium

The Mummy (1999)

When first released, "The Mummy" served a useful role as a start-of-summer guilty pleasure that asked little of brain cells still thawing from the chill of winter. But now, as the frosty darkness takes us once more, I have discovered another good use for this movie: it goes nicely with a cup of hot cocoa, a snuggly blanket, and a soft couch on those days when you've just got to call in sick.

Yes, "The Mummy" is pure cheese, and (bless its heart) it makes no attempt to be anything else. Just look at the sets, which feature a veritable smorgasbord of pop-culture Egyptiana (camels, sarcophagi, and pyramids, of course, but also jackals, scarabs, implements of ritualistic sacrifice, and near naked nubile Nubians). Just look at the characters, cardboard cutouts every one: square-jawed rogue Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser); spunky librarian Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz); Evelyn's feckless brother Jonathan (John Hannah); a musty old Englishman; a passel of dumb Americans; and a host of Arabs who are all petty, superstitious, and brain dead, with the exception of the mysterious leader of a venerable sect who wears a splendid black dress and would gladly die for the sacred cause of his brethren (Oded Fehr). Naturally, the unlikely heroes embark on a quest (set in motion by --- what else? --- a hidden map), experiencing all the wonder and danger of Meddling with Ancient Forces until they run up against the one moderately surprisingly part of the whole story, a 3,000-year-old mummy who appears less in rags and decaying flesh than in the strikingly sexy (whole) body of Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), ancient Romeo and pharaoh's bane who just wants to get his girlfriend back and can't help it if he's cursed to be a plague upon the Earth.

Fraser, Hannah, and Vosloo attack their roles with the appropriate hammy, silly, and tragic relish, respectively (the rest of the cast is negligible), and the special effects get the job done in unspectacular but adequate fashion. (If I had to use one word to describe this movie, it would be "swarming:" masses of bugs, humans, and sand abound.) However, the players and visuals are secondary to the larger appeal of the picture as a whole. For my part, I like the nostalgia of these ludicrous "historical" adventure films, so indicative of the popular notion that life was bigger, better, and more exciting in the old days, especially if you went out into the large, still unexplored world. There's a reason why the really fun adventure flicks (like Indiana Jones, the pinnacle of the genre) take place in famously exotic locations and bygone eras: because while it's often desirable to escape to outer space or Middle Earth, at times it feels good to stay closer to home, where but for the subtler variations of fate you, too, could have shared in the larger-than-life adventures of a magical but still believable age. Who cares if the events in "The Mummy" are utterly fanciful fabrications (as hopefully at least half of the average American audience can discern)? Because they take place just down the street and to the left of what we know to be real, they feel like a bit of lore grandpa might have passed down, a satisfying yarn to warm the ears on a chilly winter's night.

Copyright © 2003 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.