Drain the Rock Johnson.

The Mummy Returns released in 2001 and is honestly the last Mummy movie I’ve seen in the franchise up to this point. It’s been kind of a jumbled mess since then. Stephen Sommers came back to direct The Scorpion King for a 2002 release that launched its own spinoff franchise that nobody seems willing to actually stick around for long.

Seriously, in five films the Scorpion King himself has gone through four separate actors. Going by the cast list, nobody ever makes a reappearance except for Victor Webster who apparently enjoyed playing the king enough to appear in two movies. 2002’s The Scorpion King is the last to have a theatrical release and literally nobody of value; director, screenwriter, composer, editor, etc, have ever come back for a second film. Outside of Victor of course.

The Mummy Returns is a sequel movie from the late 90’s, early 2000s, so naturally in the time since the first movie Rick (Brendan Fraser) and Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) have had a child. Because Rick isn’t just a tomb raider, he’s a womb raider. Alex is played by Freddie Boath who is now a marketing and advertising professional and is most known for his extensive film career consisting of The Mummy Returns. He wasn’t a bad child actor, he probably would’ve ended up going further if he picked Harry Potter over The Mummy.

I love sequels that show a progression of events. In The Mummy we see a ton of random side characters getting killed by swarms of flesh-eating beetles and Hamunaptra is a city of the dead that nobody seems to be able to find. By The Mummy Returns not only has Hamunaptra become an extensive digsite for the cult not to mention a tourist destination wit a Starbucks and Pizza Hut, but the cult are well aware enough of the beetles to have flamethrowers on hand just on the off chance they show up again. Smart planning.

The gist of The Mummy Returns is this. A very long time ago John “The Dwayne” Rockson (Mathayus of Akkad) led the armies of Anubis in exchange for his own soul. Now back in the present, and by present I mean 1933, an Egyptian is working to try to revive Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) again. Why? Because The Scorpion King is about to be resurrected and is going to go three knuckles deep in the world’s butthole if he manages to come back to life and full power. The cult is hoping that Imhotep and his wife (Patricia Velásquez) can beat him up and steal his lunch money, thereby gaining control over Anubis’ army of the dead. Clear as mud?

At the head of the cult is Balus Hafez (Alun Armstrong) with his enforcer Lock-Nah (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) whose job is to have his boobs out for our viewing pleasure and also be a strong hunk. I wonder if Balus specifically instructs Lock-Nah to have his shirt off or if he just does it on his own volition because Egypt is warm. John Hannah is back as Jonathan as is Oded Fehr as Medji leader Ardeth. Several of Ardeth’s lines are just closed captioned “shouting in Arabic.” Thanks, Tubi.

I love Imhotep in this film because his character also has changed a bit since the first movie. The first film Imhotep shows up in the modern world and is just getting used to a lot of the changes since his time and being basically invincible. But now he’s a lot more confident in himself. There’s a bit in this movie where a trio of characters start shooting him, and he just plays up the reaction like the bullets are actually hurting for shits and giggles. It’s funny having this decaying Egyptian pharaoh develop a morbid sense of humor.

There’s another part where Alex escapes and the cult of course starts shooting at him because it makes for an exciting scene for the viewer. Imhotep meanwhile immediately recognizes the sheer stupidity of possibly killing your hostage who you’re kinda keeping alive for a reason, and beats them up with his mystical powers. We even get to see Imhotep genuinely out of his element as he and his crew deal with ancient Egyptian curses that not even he is familiar with. The Scorpion King presents a common enemy that both sides have conflicted reasons for wanting to stop.

The CG in this movie isn’t great, especially the Scorpion King himself. Even for 2001. But the fight scenes are pretty fun and the movie as a whole is very much still enjoyable. I will say that the film does have too many silly comedy moments that don’t fit the tone, like a guy getting speared through the chest after being told the pygmies won’t cross a line and then Jonathan says “sorry, my bad.” Womp womp. Also the pygmies having weird tonally inconsistent humor.

Rating: B+