#647: The Mummy (1999)
Sometimes a remake outshines the original for a reason
Initial release: May 7th, 1999
Director: Stephen Sommers
When talking about the way adventure films of the 1990s shook out it really behooves a discussion about Indiana Jones. Raiders of the Lost Ark dates back to 1981, but Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade — arguably the best of the original trilogy — came out in 1989, and (alongside 1987's The Princess Bride) would set the tone for adventure movies since. Prince of Thieves, Dragonheart, Hook, Jumanji, The Man in the Iron Mask, even Jurassic Park — all work off a model established in the previous decade. And so it feels appropriate, then, that one of the last big adventure flicks of the nineties takes us back to the archaeology-adventure genre that Indy so typified: the 1999 remake (sort of) of Universal’s The Mummy.
The 1932 Universal Horror classic The Mummy is kind of forgotten today, with most of the attention going to their Dracula and Frankenstein adaptations as well as the Wolfman. I personally didn’t think much of it, but it still has a place in the Universal canon. But for all that, the 1999 version is a much better film, not just because of seventy years of film’s evolution as an art form but because it just achieves what it sets out to do much better. Sure, you could disregard it as action-adventure pablum, yet another quasi-family-friendly romp with comedic bits, stock characters and a standard Jerry Goldsmith score; but that would be doing it — and action-adventure pablum — a disservice.
The premise goes something like this: back in the year dot, an Egyptian high priest named Imhotep (played by wish.com Billy Zane, otherwise known as Arnold Vosloo) fooled around with the Pharoah’s mistress. One thing leads to another and the Pharaoh is killed and the mistress, Anck-su-namun, commits suicide, leading Imhotep to try to resurrect her. The Pharaoh’s men stop him at the last minute, and aside from having Imhotep’s subordinate priests mummified alive, they stuff Imhotep himself into a sarcophagus, dump a bunch of scarab beetles in it, and drop the whole thing into a deep hole with a curse so bad nobody’s ever done it before.
Three thousand years later, Evelyn, a British-Egyptian nerd girl (you know she’s a nerd because she’s got glasses,) decides to track down the lost City of the Dead, and to do it she hires Rick, an American mercenary who knows the area. One thing leads to another, there’s a little competition with a rival archaeological team, Rick’s former prison warden (who tagged along for the money) has a memorable run-in with some scarab beetles, and the mummy of Imhotep wakes, sucks the life out of the guys who woke him up, and makes off with Evelyn, hoping to use her in a ritual to resurrect his long-dead girlfriend. Rick and a couple other guys team up to save her, there’s lots of sword fighting, lots of reading from fancy golden books, the whole place collapses, there’s more scarabs, the end.
It’s hardly the slow-paced, strangely gothic horror of the 1932 film, but it’s not trying to be. It’s a much more epic tale than that, with stuff like Rick and friends trying to outfly a sandstorm with Imhotep’s face on it, an ancient line of Medjai who have taken it upon themselves to make sure Imhotep is never awoken, a gunfight on a burning boat, and a whole lot more. It’s just plain fun, the kind of movie that felt silly yet earnest, before Marvel and Disney just sucked all the life out of the genre. The Mummy is more than just a remake, it’s an homage to all of Universal’s mummy movies, including the 1940 reboot The Mummy’s Hand that most defines the modern popular image of a shambling zombie in toilet paper. It takes those classic films’ ideas and builds on them to create something entertaining, with a likeable cast (Brendan Fraser deserved so much better!) and a decent story.
Personally, I prefer it over the 1932 movie just because Imhotep is a much more threatening villain here; in the original, he was more of an Egyptian Dracula of sorts. In the 1999 film he doesn’t speak a word of English, which I thought was interesting; the idea of a villain so evil his very presence warps the environment is also an entertaining one. But perhaps more to the point, The Mummy 1999 is just so much more fun. It achieves what it sets out to do, and does it with flair.
I think that wraps it up nicely.
