Hey Beni, looks like you’re on the wrong side of the river!

I learned something while rewatching The Mummy for the first time in what must have been at least twenty years; I didn’t remember much about The Mummy. I remembered the part with the beetle under the skin and I remembered the “wrong side of the river” quote but holy sweet Dababy Jesus did I forget 99% of this movie. Especially all the death.

Directed by Stephen Sommers and written by Stephen Sommers based on a screenplay by Stephen Sommers. Sommers has been out of the picture for about 12 years now, his last film being 2013’s Odd Thomas that cost $23 million and made roughly $1.3 million at the box office. He has executive produced The Mummy 3, 4, and 5, and had a remake of When Worlds Collide that is in development hell since 2014. I’m sure he’s made enough money off of The Mummy to live comfortably.

But I’d completely forgotten about all the plot beats in The Mummy, like Brendan Fraser’s entire role in the film. Brendan Fraser plays Rick O’Connell, a dastardly bastard with a heart of coal who starts out the film in the middle of a shootout between his own forces and bad guys. A shitload of people die in this movie and Rick is one of the biggest killers by a massive margin. The List of Deaths wiki pegs him at 104 kills. Imhotep in second place only kills 10 people by comparison.

The focus of The Mummy is around the high priest Imhotep played by noted hunk Arnold Vosloo. Imhotep is banging the Pharoah’s (Aharon Ipalé) wife Anck-su-namun (Patricia Velásquez) and the two are discovered after Imhotep smears some of her body makeup. Anck-su-namun kills the Pharoah and then herself, and for his crimes Imhotep is mummified alive and fed to ravenous beetles for shits and giggles. In doing so they also throw on him a curse that, should he ever be resurrected, he would be more powerful than anyone could imagine.

I had to go on the internet to have it explain why the curse is not utterly stupid and the answer I got is this; the purpose of the curse was to ensure that Imhotep could never move on to Egyptian Heaven, because that place is awesome and it’s where all the wine and luxury is. The curse effectively makes him immortal and tethers him to this world as a never-ending punishment. The side effect is that if Imhotep is resurrected, he’s an unstoppable force of evil. So they just stop him from being resurrected.

The Egyptians probably also didn’t predict a world where people looking for treasure in the various tombs would hear about an ancient curse and just activate it for fun. People had more respect for the dead. Also they were superstitious enough to not muck around just on the off-chance a film like The Mummy becomes real.

Rachel Weisz plays Evelyn, a woman who is 90s movie gorgeous. And by that I mean they trick us by having her put her hair up and wear glasses in the opening scenes to signify that she’s a big nerd. Her and her brother Jonathan (John Hannah) recruit Rick and save him from being hanged to he can bring them to Egypt to find the lost city of Hamunaptra so they can find the book of Amun-Ra. Oh yeah, Brendan Fraser gets hanged in this movie. Literally hanged, and only survives because by pure luck his neck doesn’t instantly snap when he hits the end of the rope.

What the shit. The sniveling “guy who is definitely going to betray them” character is Beni, played by Kevin J. O’Connor voted most likely to end up on the wrong side of the river. There’s a handful of other really great characters that play their role fantastically.

The CG for The Mummy still holds up incredibly well, although that might also be a side-effect of watching it in 720p via Tubi. I’m sure the film might not look as great on a 4k screen trying to watch an upres’d version. But the CG on Imhotep still is fantastic to look at even if the early stuff doesn’t quote hold up well. I do love the scene where the beetle scurries out of his neck and into his cheek via open wounds. Looks fantastic. The only thing that doesn’t hold up well is the CG water but that’s to be expected.

The Mummy is dirty, sweaty, and most importantly it has Brendan Fraser who is and always will be an American treasure. If you’ve somehow never seen these movies, I highly recommend watching them. And by them I mean The Mummy 1 and 2. 3 onward are completely optional, in fact you can just skip them.

Rating: A