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Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by

Columbia TriStar

The Mummy is the 1999 update of the 1932 original Universal Pictures classic, but this time round there's more than just bandages on display.

After an unseen contretemps between the hero of the film, Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) and Jonathan Carnaham (John Hannah) over a magic key, the former has been languishing in jail for a fair while. He is only released when he promises to Carnaham's sister, Evy, an English girl with a posh jolly-hockey-sticks accent, that he knows the way to Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead and home to the tomb of Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) after his life took a most unfortunate turn as noted in the opening pre-title scene.

What follows is a gung-ho action-adventure with our intrepid crew setting off to see what there is to see, accompanied by the prison guard who let O'Connell go after being promised a cut of the final profits, who is played by Omid Dhalili, most recently seen on the small screen as the cafe owner in Channel 4's excellent sitcom Small Potatoes, which also starred Tommy Tiernan and Emma Rydal. Also along for the ride are an Egyptologist (Jonathan Hyde) and one of life's irritants for O'Connell, Beni (Kevin J. O'Connor, who also appeared in director Stephen Sommers' Deep Rising).

When they arrive at their destination, all hell breaks loose, literally, as Imhotep is inadvertantly risen from the dead 3000 years after his entombment and threatens to bring civilisation crashing down to his level, but only after he's brought his girlfriend back from the dead. Will he succeed or will he be slapped back down to Earth like the nasty man he is? It doesn't take a genius to work that one out, but note that they'll all be back for another crack of the whip as the four main characters have been signed up for next year's sequel, provisionally titled, The Mummy 2. Original, eh?

If you've seen the trailer or clips from the film before now, it may appear to be more of an update on Raiders of the Lost Ark, with the powerful forces of the Ark replaced by the powerful forces of the Mummy. I wouldn't like to draw too many comparisons, so I'll say no more than the fact that each have a roughneck hero who dishes out one-liners and initially appears uninterested in the girl until later on, a girl who appears only to have her own interests at heart for most of the time until later on and a hanger-on in the form of a toffee-noses Englishman, taking the place of the late Denholm Elliott. There's also a moment that hails back to the Staff of Ra, but not carried out as impressively.

film pic

Imhotep's girlfriend approaches

Anamorphic picture, original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 and some unbelievable special FX including sandstorms that have more to them than initially meets the eye, rotting flesh that looks positively disgusting but its success only champions its cleverness and little scarabs that make mincemeat out of anything. The average bitrate is a fine 5.65Mb/s, briefly peaking over 8Mb/s.

The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 for English and German dialogue, contains a rousing score from Jerry Goldsmith and has impressive sound effects galore from the haunting tones and dark atmosphere to sounds of shootings, explosions and crystal clear dialogue.

film pic

A predicament for Evy

Extras :

Chapters and Trailer :

Only 18 chapters covering the two-hour running time which isn't enough, but it's no more than the Americans had and the original theatrical trailer is included.

  • Languages and Subtitles :

    Dolby Digital 5.1 in English and German, as stated before, plus subtitles in eleven languages: English, Dutch, German, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Greek, Hebrew, Polish and Czech.

    And there's more...:

    Menu :

    Colourful, animated, fully scored and looking fantastic. Those are the words I'd choose to describe all the menus and next-level sub-menus on this disc. The picture on the back cover looks like it's come from the Region 1 DVD's "extras" menu as it's not the one represented here which spreads itself over two pages and not one.

    film pic

    The ultimate treasure chest

    Overall, if there's two things this film doesn't have going for it, it's some of the lead actors and the running time. Firstly, Messrs. Fraser and Weisz can't really act to save their lives and John Hannah doesn't get much else to do apart from play a one-dimensional Englishman, although Arnold Vosloo does shine as the evil Imhotep, as he did when playing right-hand man to Lance Henriksen in John Woo's exceptional Hard Target which is due for a DVD release in March 2000.

    The film does run too long as well. At two hours, I was left wanting for the description scenes being sliced as they slowed things down. In an ideal world, seamless branching would've been used to cut these out and have the actors turn to the camera and say, "Select the short version if you've seen 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'" :)

    As for the DVD itself, compared to most Region 2 DVDs it has more to offer than most but it's missing a trailer and thanks to Julian K for pointing out that it's also missing Jerry Goldsmith's complete, isolated score in 5.1, which plays as background music to the "Languages" menu on the Region 1 disc. As such, I've downrated the extras slightly below. He also notes that the UK disc's trailer is 16:9 and seems to be a "clean" version of the first trailer on the R1 disc, in that it has blank spaces where the US version had the date superimposed.

    The disc may be worth a rental first if you've seen all the Indiana Jones films, as the film may not hold too many repeat viewings, but the special effects are worth a look all by themselves.

    As a final note, it's worth a mention that whereas the cinema release was a 12-certificate with a few seconds of violence and gore exorcised for the moral good of the nation, the DVD release goes beyond all usual BBFC comprehension by persuading them to break away from their usual trappings.

    As you can see, the picture sleeve states a "Full Uncut Version", which it is, but I presumed the video was also complete. It now transpires the video is a censored 12-cert version in both pan-and-scan (P&S) and widescreen variants.

    The BBFC stopped giving out dual certificates for the same film with Die Hard 2 on P&S (15-cert) and WS (18-cert) video, hence the reason why the subsequent Terminator 2: T1000 Edition was still censored despite purporting to be the full special edition.

    The video box for The Mummy (P&S version) I saw in Asda had a 12-cert and just a pic of the Mummy's "face" on its own. I wasn't sure if either the BBFC had changed their minds (since the 15-cert version isn't any sort of official "director's cut" - which would mean they would treat it as a separate film) or Asda just had a few standard promo boxes on display.

    However, thanks goes to Paul Ellis on the DVD-UK mailing list for confirming the BBFC's change of heart. You too can join the DVD-UK mailing list by subscribing at : www.onelist.com 

    FILM	 		: ***
PICTURE QUALITY		: *****
SOUND QUALITY		: *****
EXTRAS			: ****½
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ****½

    Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.

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