Mummy Returns, The by Joshua Vasquez, Staff Film Critic When Universal claimed that 1999's The Mummy was to be the first in a series of remakes of the studio's original horror triumphs from the 1930's, it seemed an agenda to be viewed with extreme skepticism. Although the notion of sequels and re-workings has been bedded with the genre from the beginning, and one can scarcely feign too much shock at the suggestion, the prospect is less than comforting, especially when the object of such dubious attentions are the fragile classics of some 70 years ago. Universal's horror series, even while it degenerated into little more than schlocky spook shows where the words "Meets" or "House of..." increasingly became a requirement in the title to draw back the teenage bubble-gum chewing crowd (Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, House of Dracula, etc.), had its genesis in a tiny pocket of works that even today have a magical luminescence, like the shadow puppet theatre of another time. Browning's Dracula, Whale's Frankenstein, and Freund's The Mummy have formed a vaded triumvirate that has lasted for seven decades, a memory of achievement that, much like its "stars," refuses to be buried away. For all their awkwardness, and Browning's film is far greater the offender in that regard, Dracula and Frankenstein are quietly hypnotic. Infected with that maddened glee so particular to Expressionistic gloom, a genuine beauty nettles their compositions of light and dusk in pockets of deep silence. But where these films could be seen, all stylistic considerations aside, as slightly overwrought morality plays, The Mummy is the series' dark poem. Drowned in the melancholic heaviness of an atmosphere atrophied by a decaying, caliginositic elegance, Karl Freund's 1932 masterpiece, the neglected jewel in the crown of Universal's horrors, is more twilight melodrama than scare show. Karloff's Im-Ho-tep is a being driven by profound grief, a mournful figure warped by love's obsession into an underworld, both literal and metaphorical, of evil. It's a pity that Freund, more well known for his work as a cinematographer, made so few films; his direction creates a curiously palatial landscape, more luxuriously mysterious and resonant than either Browning's or Whale's films, perhaps partly because of its freedom from the popularity, and thereby over-familiarity, stemming from Dracula and Frankenstein's literary origins. Haunting in its brevity, as most of the horror films of the period are, but epic in scope, and touched by a dream-like imperial exoticism yet still pierced with the inescapable menace of the genre, The Mummy is the most subtle artistic achievement of the series. So when Universal decreed a remake, it seemed destined to fail, if only because the notion of a modern, big budget action film capturing any degree of the sensitivity and vision of the original seemed remote at best. Stephen Sommers' film lived up to those modified expectations, but what became surprising was that, while at times clumsily handled and awkwardly imitative, it was pulpish fun. As Rick O'Connell, Brendan Fraser surprised with his ability to play the gruff, tomb-raiding hero type without looking like too much of a Harrison Ford knock off, managing to develop his own brand of blundering charm. Fraser's sarcastic, good-naturedly thuggish O'Connell seemed more like a refugee from Gunga Din than Raiders of the Lost Ark (the latter film admittedly somewhat an homage to the former itself). Arnold Vosloo, playing the mummy Im-Ho-Tep and having relatively little to do, brought the slightest touch of the yearning that Karloff magnificently portrayed, and became something more, albeit slimly, than a cardboard villain. All in all, not so bad considering what could have been, and the result was that Sommers and Universal had a surprise hit on their hands. And so, as expected, a sequel was spun from success. Helmed and scribbled once again by Sommers, The Mummy Returns takes up 8 years after the events of its predecessor, with Fraser's Rick O'Connell now married to love interest Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) from the first film and continuing their adventures, son Alex (Freddie Boath) in tow. Meanwhile, an army of scoundrels plots to uncover the buried Im-Ho-Tep so that they might use him to do battle with the legendary Scorpion King (WWF favorite The Rock), and thereby take control of the undead army of Anubus, a horde of gnashing man-jackals. Plots for world domination abound, taking our heroes on a sand-hopping journey from ruin to ruin, dodging bullets, tidal waves and ranting ancient evil, never missing an opportunity to make quips along the way. The scope of this second entry in the Mummy franchise (a prequel featuring the Scorpion King is in the works) is much larger than the first film's, a globe-trotting jaunt frenzied with movement. Admittedly, the term globe-trotting may be a bit deceptive, since the narrative only makes use of two countries, but part of the film's charm is its genuine need to be dashing and exciting. Sommers clearly enjoys creating spectacle, less like a deadened, slumming action director than like a little boy who really wants people to be swept up in his adventure. That enthusiasm is a welcome holdover from the first film, a buoyant air keeping both works from drying out like so many other Hollywood larks. The blood spilt in The Mummy Returns is like that shed in the countless serials of a cinematic generation ago, where people vanished in the cloudy beam of an invisible death ray or were replaced by cheap looking mannequins before being mauled by diminutive alligators. Sommers situates his tale in that nearly lost land of wobbling cardboard spaceships and fiendish arch-villains, so that the film takes on a kind of wide-eyed innocence. Certainly, The Mummy Returns is casting back a glance to that world from a very different place, far enough removed that perhaps only echoes remain, but, even if the influence is less than explicit, the feeling is there, and that counts for far more than may be initially evident. For example, the film relies heavily on computer animation for just about all of its pageant, digital sculpting that looks extremely obvious and cartoonish. In the average action/adventure vehicle, basking as so many of them do in the cheap, easy grittiness of their chintzy darkness, such blatant usage of so revealingly fictional a tool would be creative suicide (if that word could even be used for such films). Considering The Mummy Returns's joyously extravagant narrative slant, mad, plotting mummies, armies of jackals, and holographic devices built into ancient Egyptian artifacts, the choice of overt animation seems more deliberate. I can't help but wonder if the bubbled, shimmering effects of a computer are Sommers's version of a tiny metal spaceship attached to a wire, hovering in front of a painted backdrop. That being said, however, the animation does detract from the film. Overuse of any tool becomes grating, and in an age where corners are constantly being cut, and half-wit digital effects are loudly praised by filmmakers one suspects bankrupt of ideas or the impetus to try harder, you can never be entirely sure of motivational purity. Despite my waxing nostalgic, I am suspicious, unfortunately necessarily so. While some of those doubts are eased by Sommers's calling of his shots, his winking "admission" as he expressly recalls Raiders of the Lost Ark's opening near the film's beginning--having Brendan Fraser walk down an anciently begrimed tunnel, break a huge spider web, and step through into the light--are further entrenched by his outright thievery in others: the rifle artistry of Mann's The Last of the Mohicans, slow motion combat a la The Matrix, and even the sequence from Spielberg's The Lost World in which the hunters were picked off in a field of tall grass. The Mummy Returns takes the action element further than in the first film, something that, quite honestly, adds to its enjoyability, but at the same time clearly makes commercial concessions to what audiences supposedly expect nowadays. A prime example are the sudden temporal shifts made so popular by the aforementioned Matrix, but what few producers and directors seem to realize was that such a technique made narrative sense in the Wachowski Brothers' film. There is precious little need of such fare in The Mummy Returns, particularly when it's mostly limited to the final sequence, making it look like one of those amusement park stunt shows. The performances, at their best, temper such reactions, but at their worst, they only serve to re-enforce them. Considering his enamoring performance in the first film, it comes as a bit of a surprise just how apathetic Brendan Fraser seems in this sequel. He isn't bad per say, just more content with his character's one dimensionality than he seemed before. As introduced in The Mummy, Fraser's Rick O'Connell is a rashly inclined quip machine (throw a hectic situation his way and out he comes with a withering comment) with a readily admitted streak of brutishness, and while those traits are still present, indeed referenced quite frequently, in The Mummy Returns, a hollowness has crept in, one greater than the playful insubstantiability of Fraser's earlier performance. It's an emptiness that hints at boredom. Despite this, Fraser still has enough awkward charisma to gloss over any deeper complaints. As Ardeth Bay (a reference to the 1932 original, as that was the name that Karloff's Mummy adopted as his "human" identity), the righteous defender of the faith and battler of darkness, Oded Fehr is given more to do than in the previous outing, even if it mostly involves battling computer generated monsters, and succeeds quite well within the parameters of such a role; his character would make a more interesting subject for another film in the series than the Scorpion King, or even the O'Connells for that matter. Poor Arnold Vosloo is still effectively kept on the sidelines, although he has far more time in the flesh this go around. Vosloo has an impressive screen presence and a cool menace tempered by desire appropriate to the character, but complications of Im-Ho-Tep that are intended by the script, his reaction to betrayal by lover Anck-Su-Namun (the lovely if vacant Patricia Velazquez) being an example, fall rather flat. The only really worthwhile performance comes from John Hanna as Rick O'Connell's cowardly brother-in-law Jonathan. The rest of the cast are unremarkable, Freddie Boath being annoying even for a child actor, saved only by his accent. Yet this is not a film trying to sell characters; the escapades rule all... and as far as escapades go, The Mummy Returns, all ungainliness aside, is rather fun. There hasn't been much talk from Universal about further remakes of the horror classics, and that's almost certainly a good thing. While The Mummy may offer itself to radical reinterpretation, there are just about enough horrifically failed versions of Dracula and Frankenstein to litter a small planet. As remakes go, Stephen Sommers's Mummy films are examples of the least offensive way to go about so inherently questionable a process: starting from the broadest sketch and never trying to come near, let alone top, the haunting majesty of the original, Sommers allows both The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, at their best, to be nothing more than they need be, Saturday afternoon adventures grinning madly as they make a frenzied dash into the past.