If the rest of the movie had been so straightforward they'd have been on to a winner.Remember how badly 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' turned out when Steven Spielberg tried to wedge an impish kid into his successful archeology-action-adventure formula? Well, deja vu. As crustaceans run riot and huge armies swarm the desert like marauding bugs, plot complications cease to become important and the action takes centre stage. By the time the final reel happens along we're in familiar territory, with the CGI wizardry the audience will have paid to see unleashed in awesome, truly spectacular fashion. mummy battle on a double-decker bus, and some seriously vicious pygmy mummies in the desert), the action takes too long and sags noticeably in the middle when stilted dialogue takes over from the special effects which are, unsurprisingly, the movie's real star. Also caught up in all this is Hannah, reprising his toff in peril role to even more annoying effect, Velasquez as the kind of character you know was just included to get reincarnated and challenge Weisz to some nifty, post-Crouching Tiger catfights, and wrestler The Rock, whose triumphantly overblown billing as 'The Scorpion King' achieves little except to thoroughly disappoint his legion of tiny fans when they discover how little he is actually on screen.ĭespite some neat set-pieces (highlights including a fast and furious man vs. Meanwhile, Fraser and Weisz find themselves involved with Imhotep and his band of undead followers, in such a convoluted way that they are forced to once again save the world from his grasp. The plot, however, gets thoroughly messy, as our heroes fuss over whether or not it's really wise to open ancient Egyptian chests covered in cobwebs, and their resourceful child (Boath) has to live with the consequences of putting on an antique bracelet which allows him to take a speeded-up virtual tour of ancient Egypt.

That's not to say that the second instalment is a lost cause as escapist, noisy (and indeed the thrills are on an ear-splitting level here) popcorn entertainment, it certainly delivers. This is sequel-making by numbers, where the zealous attempts to outdo the predecessor, (one all-poweful baddy last time - hey! - let's have two this time!) loses sight of the finer points. The Mummy Returns (are two further efforts entitled The Mummy Forever and The Mummy And Robin set to follow, one wonders?) was a blockbuster waiting to happen, but for all its slick proficiency and brilliant special effects, it's hard to locate in the over-complicated story any of the innocent, tongue-in-cheek charm that made the first film so enjoyable. As we all know, the law of averages dictates that sequels shouldn't be as good as their predecessors, and this attempt to franchise 1999's highly enjoyable, and surprisingly profitable, caper, is no exception.

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