Which is a bit of a worry. Having viewed the trailers for The Phatom Menace
I felt very disappointed with the quality of their digital animations;
everything seemed to be a little bit fuzzy and lacking in quality one expects
from such expensive blockbusters. The quality of special effects in The
Mummy also leave a lot to be desired.The opening sequence, with its truely impressive feeling of scale, had more
than a hint of Prince of Egypt about it and I could
swear there was a slight jitter between foreground and background synching
towards its end.
Not the most inspiring of starts and, sadly, a precursor to some shoddy work
which appears later in the film.
The resounding succeses in the film were the, definately, tongue in cheek
treatment throughout, the ripping yarn action sequences, and some incredible
sets.
The screenplay was tolerable, and at least fluid enough most of the time, but
the initial dialogue had a childish, patronising feel to it although it grated
less as the action took centre stage.
John Hannah created the best character by far, playing second fiddle to our
late 1920's swash-buckling hero, Brendan Fraser.
One thing the film didn't feel shy about was killing its cast off, okay the
leads were guaranteed to survive, and unsurprisingly enough, plenty of links
were left in ready for the sequel. With eighteen speaking parts cast, there
was plenty of variety throughout and it wasn't just a look what the hero's
doing now film, a great improvement over Indiana Jones.
A strange mix for a film; sometimes banal other times highly humorous,
brilliantly scripted in places, wooden in others, a mixture of quite good
effects amidst some which were pretty poor ( one would have though they
could have managed a proper quicksand set ! ) and others which were nothing
special and most had been seen before in some film or other.
As an enjoyable romp in the sand it served well. As to living up to its hype,
it failed to deliver what was promised. But that doesn't make it a film
unworthy of watching; it was, at the end of the day, very entertaining.
And the plot ?
High Priest Imhotep gets all wet and lusty over the Pharoah's wife, Anck Su
Namon ( a brilliant costume there ), gets collared, gets mummified alive,
gets stuck underground for three thousand years, gets resurected, acts all
evil like and ... well, I wouldn't want to spoil the ending, would I ?
Great fun all round at the end of the day.
