This might distract the viewer for a while. Much like a woman with a bad complexion – who may pile too much make-up on her face to hide her many blemishes – TMR seems fueled by a "throw as much at the audience as you can and they won't notice how lame it really is" mentality. It does, however, play very nicely on the Decca soundtrack CD – where it's easier to appreciate some of the work's gentle melody lines and layered action motifs.įor all the things that work in The Mummy Returns, it's hard to escape the sense this film is over-compensating for something. Fans of the composer will find Silvestri has generated a different kind of score than they are used to – his TMR effort is so grand and so lush it sometimes overpowers what's happening on-screen. Jerry Goldsmith (who scored Sommers' Deep Rising and The Mummy) is here replaced by Alan Silvestri (the Back to the Future trilogy and Predator).
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Physically, TMR is a phenomenal looking film – production design by Allan Cameron is consistently impressive (while still managing to evoke old-time Saturday serial sensibilities), and cinematography by Adrian Biddle (returning from the first film) is slavishly devoted to creating a sense of spectacle we just do see too often these days. With solid scripts, this guy could be incomparable – and unstoppable. His screenplays all show wit and cleverness, but seem written only to bridge individual action sequences rather than telling their (intrinsically compelling) stories thoroughly. While it's unlikely that a person like Sommers (by my count he's written and directed seven of the nine films he's been involved with) would ever be particularly keen to realize someone else's screenplay, he really could use a bit of help with script development.
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It can get old really quickly, which is often the case in this movie.īut, as old as the action sometimes becomes (even a "rollercoaster ride" movie requires more well-roundedness than is evident here), Sommers is still a damn fine action director – his energy, style, comic flare, and visual sensibilities are tough to top.
It just means we can only see so much shooting and hacking before the shooting and hacking stops being¿well¿special or interesting. there's a lot of great material in the film, but it's very easy for audiences to become anesthetized by (thus insensitive to) too many action scenes of the same ilk (in this case, countless variants of running gunfights, slam-bang swordplay, and acrobatic/kamikaze undead). The Mummy Returns suffers from what I call " Total Recall Syndrome" – i.e. Some may find The Mummy Returns occasionally smart "dumb fun", but action fans wanting a more meat in their diet will likely grow weary of TMR in very short order. Is this a good thing? Depends on your perspective. It makes a few (brief) pit stops (probably intended as "bathroom breaks" by writer/director Steven Sommers), but then it quickly reverts into a celluloid Tasmanian Devil, and spins away wildly. This rambunctious, ADD-stricken sequel can't (and won't) stay still for a moment, bouncing from setting to setting, scenario to scenario, set piece to set piece, idea to idea like a racquetball made of Flubber. The Mummy is a Merchant-Ivory film compared to TMR. Magic and edge aren't as evident this time around (despite the film centering on the kidnapping of an adventurous young boy – very nicely played by Freddie Boath) – the first movie's horror and mystery having been replaced here by exhausting velocity and gargantuan spectacle. The Mummy Returns is clearly from the same family as its predecessor, but in many ways this film is very different. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but who the hell cares? It's still kinda fun (from the accounts of many audience members, it's also way too long), even though it's never as good as it should have been. It's got mighty-athletic cannibal pigmy mummy monsters, Jules Verne-inspired hot-air baloon/rocket sled thingies, buttloads of phony-looking/sword-wielding CGI dog warrriors (if ya seen one phony-looking/sword-wielding CGI dog warrior, ya seen 'em all), and the damndest mode of deforestation this side of the Tunguska Blast. The first of this Summer's big-ass visual blow-outs (including Moulin Rouge, Jurassic Park III (nicely trailered in front of The Mummy Returns), Pearl Harbor, and Planet of the Apes), this film is as crazy as they come. Universal's The Mummy Returns has arrived, pushed into rapid development after its progenitor ( The Mummy – duh) managed to fly sky-high in a Star Wars Episode I-challenged marketplace two years ago.
Gun-wielding smart-asses, cackling villains, a tragically anorexic screenplay, Verhoven-esque babefights, deafening sound mixes, and countless lousy special effects can only mean one thing: the Summer movie season is here!