The Mummy Returns (2001)

The second in a trilogy, though I am unsure if a third was intended at the completion of this film. I just completed the trilogy and will sadly see the new film as well.The cinematography isn't bad. The story is worse than the first one. The characters are about the same. The lone exception is the child, which meant that the film would be horrible. It is bad enough that the "good" characters have superhuman abilities to avoid any danger, they can also come back from the dead.I am unsure if this was used in the first or second film, but the phrase, "Mortal weapons cannot hurt him/kill him." He does seem to be able to get hurt with a few punches though. If a bullet doesn't hurt, why would a punch/rock/anything else?In conclusion, this is a stupid film. It is good if you want to sleep, as I did towards the end (the first time). If you like it, you will probably be happy in life, as you like films that treat you like a child.It made a lot of money, which isn't shocking. Hopefully the people that paid for it had a horrible fate befall them. If you think that is harsh, good for you. The film is painfully bad, though not as bad as the third.

Roughly 9 years on from the events of the first film Rick and Evelyn are now married and have an 8 year old son called Alex. Whilst on another one of their archaeological digs they come across the bracelet of Anubis and return it back to their London home. In the meantime another team of explorers find Imhotep's body and raise him from the dead and this team of explorers need this bracelet to control The Scorpion King's army and take over the world. Rick and his team must do everything in their power to stop this rival faction acquiring the bracelet and must once again try to destroy Imhotep.The Mummy Returns shares a lot of the same qualities as the first film; the tongue-in-cheek humour, goofy charm, and once again the tone is fairly light-hearted and fun. As with the first film, the story is fairly well-paced and moved along fairly well - the only aspect of the story that I wasn't totally impressed with was Imhotep and Anck-Su-Namun's romance which was overused and given a little more focus than I felt was necessary.The performances were pretty good once again; although the chemistry that Weisz and Fraser shared here wasn't quite as good as it was in the first film - maybe having them as a married couple in this film may have subdued it somewhat. As Alex, Freddie Booth gives a cheeky and fun performance and to his credit he didn't cross that fine line between being funny and annoying which was nice to see. John Hannah was good value here, although again I didn't think he was quite as funny in the second film as he was in the first film.The only real problem I had with this film lay with the Scorpion King's arrival at the end.... Having seen the real Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson at the start of the film I fully expected to see the real Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson at the end of the film. However, when he does arrive rather than being Dwayne Johnson what we actually get is some kind of horrendous CGI creation of Dwayne Johnson. Why did the filmmakers feel that it was necessary to CGI Dwayne Johnson??? Couldn't they have just superimposed a scorpion's tail and claws/pincers on to his body? I can't imagine that this decision will have gone down well with his fans and I'm sure that the real Dwayne Johnson could have been used at the end as the Scorpion King with some kind of computer wizardry. Personally I thought it just looked naff and it made what should have been a tense final battle look laughable... Imhotep's cowardice at the end only made matters worse. Had the CGI been good then I might have let it slide, but it looked awful and was a misstep in my opinion.Fortunately, a lot of the fun that was present in the first film is present here which, like the first film, makes this sequel watchable. However, the CGI Dwayne Johnson Scorpion King at the end was awful and almost ruined this film for me, but the key word here is almost.

The Mummy Returns is directed by Stephen Sommers and has music by Alan Silvestri. The film stars Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, Arnold Vosloo, John Hannah, Oded Fehr, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Alun Armstrong, Patricia Velasquez, Freddie Boath and The Rock.Set several years after the first film, this sequel finds Rick(Brendan Fraser)and Evelyn(Rachel Weisz)now married. The couple have a young son called Alex(Freddie Boath). The trio are in Egypt looking for artefacts, they come across an ancient bracelet which once belonged to The Scorpion King(The Rock). The Scorpion King sold his soul to the Anubis, in return he had command over an evil army and was seemingly invincible. Unbeknown to the O'Connell's, followers of Imhotep have once again raised him from the dead, his former lover Anck Su Namun(Patricia Velasquez)has been reincarnated and the pair want the bracelet of Anubis to command the armies so they can dominate the world. Alex tries on the bracelet and discovers he can't take it off, Imhotep and his followers kidnap the boy. Rick, Evelyn, Jonathan (John Hannah)and Ardeth Bay(Oded Fehr) try and get him back and foil this evil plan.Evelyn keeps having strange visions which we soon discover are past memories, she is revealed to have been the daughter of the Pharaoh murdered by Imhotep.This film has much more action than the first one, it's a non stop thrill ride and has a cracking score. The special effects are once again not all that great, especially those for the mummy and Scorpion King. I didn't like Evelyn turning out to have been an ancient princess or what is revealed about Rick, I think that takes something away from the film. In the first film and for the first part of this sequel, Rick and Evelyn are just normal people who come up against out of the ordinary things, they find the strength and courage to fight those things. Making them connected to the past takes away their normality, learning that these things were meant to be just seems unnecessary to me.The cast once again deliver good performances, Oded Fehr is hysterical as the badass Ardeth Bay. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is chilling as Lock-Nah one of Imhotep's supporters, he's great at playing villains and is very intense here.Worth a watch, but it's not as good as the first film.

In this movie the mummy will return to wake up, this time in London in the thirties. Rick and Evelyn will have to run against the clock in order to save the world again, and most importantly, to save their son, Alex. This is the sequel of "The Mummy", movie of 1999, and has the direction and script by Stephen Sommers and the participation of Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah and Arnold Vosloo, added by Patricia Velasquez, Freddie Boath, Dwayne Johnson and Oded Fehr.It's always difficult for a sequel surprising the audience that saw the first film. This film suffers from this difficulty and therefore couldn't surprise the same way as the first one. The script could also have been more interesting: the "Scorpion King" story is hardly convincing and sounds like a sort of publicity for the movie with that name which came out the year after. Dwayne Johnson, in turn, played his role perfectly well: this "pseudo-actor" is good for any role where he has to punch four times more than talk. The rest of the cast is perfectly fine, particularly Freddie Boath, who was brilliant in his role, and Arnold Vosloo, who gave his character a psychological depth that he hadn't had the opportunity to show in the first film. The soundtrack continued to be good without being exceptional, the special effects and make-up continued to make their role positively but without surprises. The computerization and digital resources surprised me most at the end of the film, which is very well done.This film comes on the trail of a great movie for the family and for almost all ages. I believe that, despite not having been exactly a surprise to the public, this shouldn't be a big sin. It remains a film made with great care and in an intelligent and humorous way. It's a movie for everyone.