Skip to content
Dom Robinson reviews
Columbia TriStar
- Cat.no: UDR 90037
- Cert: 15
- Running time: 120 minutes
- Year: 1999
- Pressing: 1999
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 18 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English, German
- Subtitles: 11 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Theatrical trailer, Biographies, Filmographies, Production Notes, Booklet, Director’s Commentary, “Building a Better Mummy”documentary, 3 Deleted Scenes, Visual and Special Effects Formation Featurette,Egyptology 101, DVD-ROM elements including “The Mummy” game.
Director:
- Stephen Sommers
(The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993), Catch Me If You Can, Deep Rising, The Jungle Book (1994))
Producers:
- James Jacks and Sean Daniel
Screenplay:
- Stephen Sommers
Music:
- Jerry Goldsmith
Cast:
- Rick O’Connell: Brendan Fraser (Airheads, Blast From the Past, California Man, Dudley Do-Right, George of the Jungle, Gods and Monsters, In the Army Now, Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy, Now and Then, School Ties, Son in Law)
Evelyn ‘Evy’ Carnaham: Rachel Weisz (Amy Foster, Chain Reaction, The Land Girls, Stealing Beauty, TV: My Summer with Des)
Jonathan Carnaham: John Hannah (The Final Cut, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Innocent Sleep, The James Gang, Resurrection Man, Sliding Doors)
Imhotep: Arnold Vosloo (Darkman 2 & 3, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Hard Target, The Progeny, TV: American Gothic, Nash Bridges)
Beni: Kevin J. O’Connor (Accidental Hero, Amistad, Canadian Bacon, Chicago Cab, Color of Night, Deep Rising, Equinox, F/X 2, No Escape, Peggy Sue Got Married, Steel Magnolias, Virtuosity)
Egyptologist: Jonathan Hyde (Anaconda, Being Human, Caravaggio, Deadly Advice, Jumanji, Richie Rich, Titanic)
The Mummyis the 1999 update of the 1932 original Universal Pictures classic, butthis 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 amagic key, the former has been languishing in jail for a fair while. He isonly released when he promises to Carnaham’s sister, Evy, an English girlwith 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-titlescene.
What follows is a gung-ho action-adventure with our intrepid crew settingoff to see what there is to see, accompanied by the prison guard who letO’Connell go after being promised a cut of the final profits, who is playedby Omid Dhalili, most recently seen on the small screen as the cafeowner in Channel 4’s excellent sitcom Small Potatoes, which also starredTommy Tiernan and Emma Rydal. Also along for the ride arean Egyptologist (Jonathan Hyde) and one of life’s irritants forO’Connell, Beni (Kevin J. O’Connor, who also appeared in directorStephen 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 entombmentand threatens to bring civilisation crashing down to his level, but only afterhe’s brought his girlfriend back from the dead. Will he succeed or will he beslapped back down to Earth like the nasty man he is? It doesn’t take a geniusto work that one out, but note that they’ll all be back for another crack ofthe whip as the four main characters have been signed up for next year’ssequel, provisionally titled, The Mummy 2. Original, eh?
If you’ve seen the trailer or clips from the film before now, it may appearto be more of an update on Raiders of the Lost Ark, with the powerfulforces of the Ark replaced by the powerful forces of the Mummy. I wouldn’tlike to draw too many comparisons, so I’ll say no more than the fact thateach have a roughneck hero who dishes out one-liners and initially appearsuninterested in the girl until later on, a girl who appears only to have herown interests at heart for most of the time until later on and a hanger-onin the form of a toffee-noses Englishman, taking the place of the lateDenholm Elliott. There’s also a moment that hails back to theStaff of Ra, but not carried out as impressively.
Imhotep’s girlfriend approachesAnamorphic picture, original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 and some unbelievablespecial FX including sandstorms that have more to them than initially meetsthe eye, rotting flesh that looks positively disgusting but its success onlychampions its cleverness and little scarabs that make mincemeat out ofanything. 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 impressivesound effects galore from the haunting tones and dark atmosphere to sounds ofshootings, explosions and crystal clear dialogue.
A predicament for EvyExtras : Chapters and Trailer :Only 18 chapters covering the two-hour running time which isn’t enough, butit’s no more than the Americans had and the original theatrical trailer isincluded.
- “Building a Better Mummy”: a 48-minute ‘making of’ documentary withbehind-the-scenes footage and interviews with principal cast and members.
- Filmographies, Biographies and Production Notes:Extensive biographies with accompanying filmographies are available for thesix actors listed at the top of the review plus director Stephen Sommers,plus a stack of production notes giving background info to the film includingthe fact that the historic dockyard of Chatham doubled as the Sphinx’s home,the Giza Port on the River Nile.
- Audio commentary track: A feature-length commentary track fromdirector Sommers and editor Bob Ducsay.
- Deleted scenes: Three brief scenes that didn’t make it into thefinal cut. They don’t enhance the film much, but are a nice addition.
- DVD-ROM elements: Electronic postcards, two screensavers and aninteractive “The Mummy” game.
- Booklet: providing behind-the-scenes notes and a breakdown of thedisc’s contents.
- Visual and Special Effects Formation Featurette: This gives astep-by-step account of four scenes from the film including the opener,the “Scarab Burial”, Brendan and Rachel up against “serious trouble”,Imhotep eating a scarab and a final fight between Brendan and a number ofskeletons that knocks the same from Jason and the Argonauts into acocked hat!
- Egyptology 101: Everything you wanted to know in a fascinating guideto the subject detailing everything about the Gods, the Immortals, the plagues,a map of the area featured in the film and the artifacts (antiques, that is,not the quality of the DVD picture!)
Menu :Colourful, animated, fully scored and looking fantastic. Those are the wordsI’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 overtwo pages and not one.
The ultimate treasure chestOverall, if there’s two things this film doesn’t have going for it, it’ssome of the lead actors and the running time. Firstly, Messrs. Fraser andWeisz can’t really act to save their lives and John Hannah doesn’t get muchelse to do apart from play a one-dimensional Englishman, although ArnoldVosloo does shine as the evil Imhotep, as he did when playing right-handman to Lance Henriksen in John Woo’s exceptional Hard Target which isdue for a DVD release in March 2000.
The film does run too long as well. At two hours, I was left wanting for thedescription 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 actorsturn 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 offerthan most but it’s missing a trailer and thanks toJulian K for pointing out thatit’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 spaceswhere the US version had the date superimposed.
The disc may be worth a rental first if you’ve seen all the Indiana Jonesfilms, as the film may not hold too many repeat viewings, but the specialeffects are worth a look all by themselves.
As a final note, it’s worth a mention that whereas the cinema release wasa 12-certificate with a few seconds of violence and gore exorcised for themoral good of the nation, the DVD release goes beyond all usual BBFCcomprehension 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 acensored 12-cert version in both pan-and-scan (P&S) and widescreen variants.
The BBFC stopped giving out dual certificates for the same film withDie Hard 2 on P&S (15-cert) and WS (18-cert) video, hence the reasonwhy the subsequent Terminator 2: T1000 Edition was still censoreddespite purporting to be the full special edition.
The video box for The Mummy (P&S version) I saw in Asda had a 12-certand just a pic of the Mummy’s “face” on its own. I wasn’t sure if either theBBFC had changed their minds (since the 15-cert version isn’t any sort ofofficial “director’s cut” – which would mean they would treat it as a separatefilm) or Asda just had a few standard promo boxes on display.
However, thanks goes to Paul Ellis on the DVD-UK mailing list for confirmingthe BBFC’s change of heart. You too can join the DVD-UK mailing list bysubscribing at :www.onelist.com
FILM : ***PICTURE QUALITY: *****SOUND QUALITY: *****EXTRAS: ****½——————————-OVERALL: ****½
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.