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Movie of the Week #36 - The Mummy
Starting the month with blockbusters with The Mummy from 1999 which made $417.4 million at the box office.
Is this a proper blockbuster with all that entails? Have you seen the other movies in the franchise?
The rest of the schedule is:
- 8th: Mission Impossible: Fallout
- 15th: Snatch
- 22nd: Barbie
- 29th: Edge of Tomorrow
This movie has one of my favorite lines in it:
The chemistry between the main characters, the basic good-heartedness of them, and the journey of the characters finding themselves are why I think this movie stands up well despite its campiness.
Rick learns that he does have a set of principles and is not just a worthless scoundrel (counterpoint is the Benny character, who remains a scoundrel). Evelyn learns she is more than just a librarian.
I added this to the list because the 25th anniversary (if it make sense to call it that) of the movie year 1999 which has given some nostalgic coverage in various movie outlets. And it was one of those big hits I hadn't seen. In many ways it is a very 1999s film with its campy style and humor that sits between spoof and serious, which is a tough balance to find. I was surprised how I found it really dumb and silly, but not so much that it became an actual problem. It works because the movie clearly commits itself to that style. It is non-stop action from start to finish and we waste no more time than strictly needed on exposition. At times it did feel a bit like o 1999. In a way it is almost like "Indiana Jones from wish.com" and constant repeat of fighting and running to the next room became repetitive in the end. It lacks the discovery aspect of the Indiana Jones movies, and while I did had fun with this, I would likely not seek out the sequels as it seems like a better use of time to simply rewatch Indiana Jones if I was in the mood for this style of classic adventure movies.
Yeah the sequels probably aren’t worth it. Mummy Returns was just more of the same, and people didn’t generally like Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (I had to google what the third one was called).
I was born the year this came out, and my family owned both this and Returns on VHS. So I grew up watching this film.
When I was young young, I was terrified of the film. I suppose it’s horror adjacent and I could not handle anything horror as a kid (this is probably why horror tends to be a blind spot for me in film). But as I got older those horror elements stopped being a problem.
I’ve seen this movie a lot. Like a lot. It used to be a staple on cable back when we had that. I grew to love it.
Usually when I have enough of a memory of a film I don’t rewatch it for these discussions. But this was on Peacock so I went what the hell. I’m pretty sure I had already watched it sometime in the past two years, but I was surprised by how dated it looked. I did not remember it looking like this. A lot of it also felt weightless. And I ended up not liking it as much as I remember.
Maybe it’s just because I'm not in a good mood, but I still enjoyed it. It’s a very easy film to watch. Especially thanks to Fraser. I have a couple of lines from this memorized “and all we found was sand and blood.” “Well if it ain’t my little buddy Benny, I’m gonna kill you now.”
I saw the third one in theaters as a kid, I liked it at the time but I don’t think I’ve seen it since. The recasting of Rachel Weisz really affected it since the films primarily work because of Weisz’s and Fraser’s chemistry.