Tale of the Mummy (1998)

Oddly enough, then "Tale of the Mummy" had fully evaded me and slipped past my radar. And it wasn't before 2017 that I happened to find it as I was browsing through the horror section. Being a movie that includes a mummy and being a horror movie, I naturally found it interesting and immediately decided to give it a chance, without reading the synopsis or taking notice of who starred in it.The movie does start out in an adequate pace, and does establish some characters pretty early on, which was good for the movie."Tale of the Mummy" has an adequate storyline, although parts of it seemed a bit forced. The storyline is simplistic and very easy to follow, making it feel like writers Keith Williams, John Esposito, Russell Mulcahy and writer/director Russell Mulcahy were followed a generic blueprint of 'how-to-make-a-mummy-movie'.I must admit that I was more than genuinely impressed with the ensemble of cast that had been hired for this movie, because there are some rather good names on the cast list here. It was a nice surprise to see the likes of Christopher Lee, Gerard Butler, Lysette Anthony, Sean Pertwee, Shelley Duvall, Jon Polito, Jason Scott Lee and Michael Lerner in a movie such as this.The effects in "Tale of the Mummy" were quite good and actually do, to some extend, still hold their ground even today. So thumbs up for the special effects team that worked on the movie.It was kind of funny how adept the awakened mummy was at speaking English and speaking it flawlessly.The movie does let off some of its momentum once it makes it past the halfway marker. Which is a bit of a shame. The movie in whole doesn't really stand out and is not a particularly memorable addition to the mummy movie genre.And the ending of the movie? Wow, seriously? That had to be one of the most ridiculous endings in the history of mummy movies. It was so phenomenally bad that it has to be seen to believe.

I knew this movie back when I was a kid. Sincé then I enjoy it so much, mainly because of the ending, it was so different from what I seen until this movie arrived. Recently one friend of mine presented me with the DVD of this movie, immediately getting played on my TV. And yet again I loved it. I must admit that it has it's flaws (some aspects of the acting, maybe the sfx, which hadn't grow old well and the crappy sound, which is too low) but in general it's worth your money and time. The story is quite generic, but I have never seen again another movie that employs the same resources that this movie uses for fulfilling the return of Talos. Again, if you want to spend a quality time with some popcorn or other snacks, give it a try. You wont regret it. Also be merciful: it was made in the 90's, back when the quality standards were much different from today.

People are being altogether too hard on this film. I found it delightful, and only partly because I had been looking at pictures of Lysette Anthony's breasts five minutes beforehand. Unfortunately those breasts do not make even cameo appearances in this film, but Christopher Lee does, and he is equally magnetic. There is some fine acting and adept direction on display here, in a heady combination with all the apocalyptic terror that can be generated by a pile of bandages. The scene in which the pile of bandages hitchhikes a ride on a maid's cart and sneaks off an elevator is, in particular, an imaginative tour de force.The most remarkable thing to me is that this film is called "Talos the Mummy", yet both IMDb and Wikipedia use a different title. It is as if there is a conspiracy to rewrite history so that this film never existed. Sublime.

I don't even know where to start. I was looking forward to seeing this, but I was terribly disappointed. Pretty much everything about it is either wrong (like casting Jason Scott Lee in the main role) or simply bad (abysmal writing). Laughably wooden acting and cheap CGI. And worst of all, this movie takes itself so seriously. It's two hours long, it has Christopher Lee and it takes about 30 minutes to establish the story. If they had gone for B-movie cheese-fest, it would have been great. But this approach killed the film. And what was with the ending? Were they really hoping for a sequel? I found it boring and will not watch it again.