Rent The Mummy Returns (2001)

Whilst enormously enjoyable in parts, sadly this film also has some quite significant failings - The Mummy Returns review by TB

The first Mummy film was great in so many ways. And re-watching it 15 years after I first saw it, I was reminded again how good it was. Everything just worked and welcomingly there was an unbelievable lightness of touch that ran through all of it. I had remembered that when I watched The Mummy Returns all those years ago, it was my favourite, but that was mainly due to the fact there is much more action in this one. Watching it back 15 years later, I have changed my mind and now feel that the first one is the better of the two.

But that doesn't mean there isn't a lot to love. Starting with the positives, it is wonderful that pretty much everyone has been brought back from the first film, although some people get less to do this time around sadly. Brendan Fraser & Rachel Weitz continue on their perfect chemistry. I just love spending time with them & it is nice to see that their romance has really believably blossomed. They now have a son, who to me was actually the best character in the whole film. Freddie Boath as the son is so so good & manages to do the almost impossible thing of being both extremely likeable and precocious without being annoying. The scenes of him with Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, continually antagonising him are hysterical. We also see the return of both Arnold Vosloo & Oded Fehr, both excellent company.

One character who sadly falls into the category of less to do is John Hannah's Jonathan. In the first film, he was really good comic relief but also fitted well into the story. Here, he makes an appearance early on, then is relegated for the middle part to the background before being almost shoehorned back into the film for the finale. And the pompous blustering did get annoying after a while.

Welcomingly, after the huge success of the first film, there is a significantly bigger budget for action & this is something else that Returns delivers on in spades. As much as the ending fights might get a lot of attention, for me the chase with the London bus was an absolute masterpiece of choreography, fight work and seemless melding of CGI. And as with the first movie, you have to remember that this film is 22 years old now and the sheer amount of films back then which has CGI which was done appallingly were off the charts. So to have this film's action sequences still standing up to scrutiny today is a massive achievement.

The production values are also outstanding and the film, as with the first one, looks spectacular. The sets & costumes are beautiful & so much effort and thought has gone into how everything looks. The remaster in 4K is also brilliantly done as well.

But sadly this film does have its problems and the biggest one by a country mile is the middle section. After the amazing first act, where it so seamlessly slips back into the pace & quality of the first film and in some ways improves on it, we then get a stodgy middle section full of exposition and nothing really happening. By the time the film starts to pick up again, all the wonderful work done previously cannot bring it back. I did enjoy the final battle in the pyramid, but also it was a little too long and bloated.

As much as there is this criticism though, I still had a blast watching it. And it is a worthy successor in many ways to the first film.