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‘The Mummy’ is a classic Indiana Jones-style adventure

PHOTO PROVIDED Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) and Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) face off against the reanimated Imhotep in this still from “The Mummy.”

This week’s Throwback Thursday review is brought to you by my sister and her HBO Max account! Frankly, all of my reviews are thanks to her streaming accounts so let’s give her a round of applause for that.

Anyway, on Sunday night she decided to watch 1999’s “The Mummy” which I hadn’t seen in years. One thing I remember quite clearly from watching this as a little kid was that it gave me an irrational fear of scarabs and being eaten alive. Not the worst fear a movie gave me as a child but it’s up there.

“The Mummy” stars Brendan Fraser as Rick O’Connell, an American adventurer who discovered Hamunaptra, the city of the dead, in Egypt while serving in the French Foreign Legion.

But our story doesn’t begin with O’Connell. No, it takes place in Thebes, Egypt, 1290 BC where high priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) is caught by Pharaoh Seti I with his mistress Anck-su-namun. After the couple kills Seti, Imhotep flees and Anck-su-namun kills herself, believing he’ll be able to bring her back to life.

Imhotep and his priests take her body and flee to Hamunaptra where he attempts to bring her back to life. The ritual is stopped however by Seti’s bodyguards, the Medjai. The Medjai bury Imhotep alive with flesh eating scarabs (yikes) and seal him away in a sarcophogus at the feet of a statue of Anubis, the Egyptian god of death. The Medjai swear an oath to keep watch and never allow the high priest to be freed.

And in steps O’Connell. To be fair it’s not just him.

In 1926, Englishman Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah) steals an intricate box and map that leads to Hamunaptra from O’Connell and brings it to his sister Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) who is a librarian and aspiring Egyptologist.

The siblings later find O’Connell and make a deal with him to lead them to the city of the dead.

On the way, the trio cross paths with a group of American treasure hunters lead by O’Connell’s sleezy acquaintance Beni Gabor (Kevin J. O’Connor).

Despite being warned by Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr), leader of the Medjai, the two groups continue their excavation into the city.

From there all hell pretty much breaks loose. The group of Americans find the black Book of the Dead, accompanied by canopic jars carrying Anck-su-namun’s preserved organs. Meanwhile, Evelyn discovers Imhotep’s remains.

Later that evening, Evelyn accidentally reads from the Book of the Dead and brings a rather nasty looking Imhotep back from the dead. From there O’Connell, Evelyn and Jonathan find themselves on a fast paced adventure to try and find the Book of Amun-Ra which could possibly defeat the evil high priest.

“The Mummy” is definitely the type of movie you enjoy for its action and adventure, occasional scary scenes and humor. The storyline is relatively sound, although it probably isn’t entirely accurate for Egyptian culture, and the effects actually hold up pretty good. The reanimated, but still mummified corpse of Imhotep is definitely not something you’d want to meet in a dark alley. I probably wouldn’t want to meet him in a bright alley either though to be fair.

Fraser of course is the star of this movie. He brings a confident, swashbuckling type feel to his role as Rick O’Connell. However, he doesn’t let his character become too serious, making him seem far more realistic than some gritty action movie characters do.

Weisz also deserves kudos as well. She brings life to Evelyn and makes her more than just a timid librarian by the end of the film (although she’s proud to be a bookworm).

Frankly though, the entire cast deserves an applause for just filming the darn thing. Filming began in Marrakech, Morocco, on May 4, 1998, and lasted 17 weeks. In that time the crew endured dehydration, sandstorms, and snakes during work in the Sahara desert. Count me out of ALL of that.

Although critics gave this movie mixed reviews, it made $43 million in its first weekend and $416.4 million worldwide during its theatrical run. It was so well loved it spawned a sequel “The Mummy Returns” in 2001 as well as “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” in 2008. It was also rebooted in 2017, however that one didn’t do as well.

I personally haven’t watched the reboot because I enjoyed the original so much. With its great cast, amazing setting mixed with a good storyline and lots of action, it’s a great movie to watch when you feel like going on an adventure but don’t want to leave your couch. Although I’m still not quite over the whole getting eaten by scarabs thing… that’s an irrational fear that will probably stick with me for life. But it’ll be something fun for my future therapist to hear about.

“The Mummy” is rated PG-13 for some graphic scenes and adult language and can be viewed on Hulu, HBO Max and Amazon Prime with a subscription or rented from YouTube, Vudu, iTunes or Google Play.

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Laura Jameson is a staff reporter for The Express.

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