What promises to be a sequel-driven summer began with a $70 million opening weekend for The Mummy Returns . Equally violent and more spiritually bankrupt than the original, this installment finds trigger-happy adventurer Rick O’Connell and darling Evelyn married with an 8-year-old son. The year is 1933. The plot? Bad guys want to wake the dead and bring unspeakable evil into the world (today they’d just release a Marilyn Manson CD). Can these devils be stopped?
The O’Connells’ first order of business is to find their son, kidnapped by old nemesis Imhotep as part of a quest to resurrect and control an army of jackals. The special effects come fast and furious. Rotting, reanimated corpses. Waves of scorpions, flesh-eating scarabs and voracious pygmies. Collapsing tombs. It’s a headache-inducing, visceral barrage that seems determined to keep audiences from pausing long enough to realize how ridiculous it all is. Nonstop violence includes stabbings, shootings, dismemberment and Imhotep sucking the life out of people.
Worse than the body count is the film’s theology. Reincarnation is a central story point as visions of a past life lead Evelyn to realize that she was the princess Nefertiri. Power comes from sorcery and occult chants (a reference to the “good book” leads one hero to consult a book of the dead in order to bring another back to life).
In the climax, Rick and Evelyn’s marriage is more than affectionate; it proves to be a formidable, selfless force. Nice thought. If only it hadn’t been shrouded by 2 hours of darkness.
