FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1999. All Rights Reserved
| Film by Robert Tarry The Mummy The Mummy, the unofficial prequel to The Prequel, has one impressive, kick-ass, gigantic flaw – its trailer. In this age of trailers as downloadable events on par with the movie itself, The Mummy’s is a minor masterpiece: thrilling, violent, scary and really, really cool. It’s everything the movie isn’t. Not to imply the movie itself is a total washout, however. In fact, The Mummy’s a goofy and harmless way to spend a hot, sticky summer afternoon in an air-conditioned theatre. But the thrills are Nerf soft, the lines are hammy, the violence is toned way down and the scares are strictly PG13. As for cool, if you thought The Goonies rocked, you’ll definitely be wanting The Mummy poster for that bedroom in your parents’ house. Writer/director Stephen Sommers has made a conscious decision to make The Mummy suitable for the whole family ("I kept telling the makeup department, ‘No running sores!’" he says in a recent interview), and that lends everything a quaintly nostalgic, B-movie feel. The killing is done in shadows, there’s plenty of painfully witty one-liners sprinkled liberally throughout, and sure enough, there’s nary a running sore to be found. (While we’re on the subject of old-fashioned B-movie attitudes, I don’t think the Arab Friendship Society will be endorsing The Mummy any time soon.) The pathologically self-deprecating Brendan Fraser and retro-cute Rachel Weisz do a decent job delivering lines and inhabiting characters so stock they probably translated them from hieroglyphics, but they don’t make much of an impression. How could they? It’s easy to imagine Gary Cooper and Catherine Hepburn or a million other interchangeable duos from the ’40s subbing in without even noticing. Yet even the darkest cynics have a secret thirst for these kind of simple adventure movies, what the guy behind me described as "movies where they go looking for stuff." And it looks like the silent masses and Universal Pictures, likewise thirsty for a hit after expensive bombs like EDtv and Meet Joe Black, have found an oasis. |
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