The Mummy Returns.

Review #2126: The Mummy Returns.

Cast: 

Brendan Fraser (Rick O'Connell), Rachel Weisz (Evelyn O'Connell / Nefertiri), John Hannah (Jonathan Carnahan), Arnold Vosloo (Imhotep), Oded Fehr (Ardeth Bay), Patricia Velásquez (Meela Nais / Anck-su-namun), Freddie Boath (Alex O'Connell), Dwayne Johnson (Mathayus of Akkad / The Scorpion King), Alun Armstrong (Baltus Hafez), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Lock-Nah), and Shaun Parkes (Izzy Buttons) Written and Directed by Stephen Sommers (#201 - G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and #1748 - The Mummy [1999])

Review: 

I did enjoy the 1999 Mummy film, albeit as a neat little romp. It did not exactly improve on previous films under that same title that had been released in 1932 or 1959, but as an action/effects feature with that general dose of horror, well, it worked out well. Sommers apparently was hesitant about doing a sequel, even if it was basically inevitable with the resulting success of that first film, which he had a hand in writing. In fact, he had described the original script of said film as "a bit reckless" before eventually getting to an "okay" result. Aside from an enlarged budget (which stems from a few raises to actors), not much has changed here, since over half-a-dozen actors from the first return here to go with a script done by Sommers. The film was a general success with audiences on the level of the original. The Scorpion King (2002), a spinoff film featuring, well, Dwayne Johnson reprising his role as the character of the same name, came out the year after this film and inspired its own run of films. Sommers did exactly one further horror-ish film with Van Helsing in 2004, which went pretty much where you would expect. A third Mummy film would come in 2008 with The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which retained Fraser and Hannah only in cast while Sommers served only as a producer.

Well, sometimes you just can't win them all. 129 minutes somehow seems pretty disposable for a film that is just a bit short in comparison to the first film when it comes to holding itself together for overall cohesion. It is a bit too familiar to go with being bereft of effective pacing. Granted, Fraser and Weisz do still have a good deal of charm together, and in general one will be just fine with watching the film when it comes to looking for just spectacle (okay, maybe some of those effects don't help). They seem to enjoy the strangeness that comes with being in a sequel with less to do in quick charm, which is more than one can say for most middling sequels. At least the kid actor that comes for the film makes for a few chuckles, but if I am drawing straws by saying this for a film released in the new millennium, what is it saying about the parts as a whole? One sees folks like Hannah seem to be having some sort of fun being around here again (relief or otherwise), but the stakes don't seem as presentable here. One senses their attention start to drift even before a dirigible makes an appearance and boy do I wish I felt some sort of presence of terror in seeing the return of said mummy from before (complete with creating big water). It trots out pygmy mummies and past lives to go with utilizing wrestler-turned-actor Johnson mostly for spectacle sequences in the start and end (one to explain just what he has to do with anything and the other for effects that look as rushed as one could expect). Even the one sequence of a character getting killed seems destined to be undone for the climax, and, well, it is funny being right for the dumbest and shallow of things. As a whole, it just isn't as freshly interesting as its predecessor, managing to be as average as one painfully can see in countless other features that is merely just okay rather than fully satisfying in fun. It is a mild disappointment that pleases a few requirements but doesn't make for a great sequel in enough categories to recommend it more than once. The fluff just isn't enough here to be as good fluff as before.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Next: Re-Animator.

Hard Target.

 

Review #1855: Hard Target.

Cast: 

Jean-Claude Van Damme (Chance Boudreaux), Lance Henriksen (Emil Fouchon), Arnold Vosloo (Pik Van Cleef), Yancy Butler (Natasha Binder), Kasi Lemmons (Detective May Mitchell), Chuck Pfarrer (Douglas Binder), Willie C. Carpenter (Elijah Roper), Wilford Brimley (Uncle Clarence Douvee), Sven-Ole Thorsen (Stephan), Jules Sylvester (Peterson), Robert Apisa (Lopacki), Tom Lupo (Jerome), David Efron (Billy Bob), Joe Warfield (Ismael Zenan), Eliott Keener (Randal Poe), Douglas Forsythe Rye (Frick), Mike Leinert (Frack), and Marco St. John (Dr. Morton) Directed by John Woo (#030 - Face/Off, #336 - Broken Arrow (1996), and #1100 - Mission: Impossible 2)

Review: 

"Mr. Jim Jacks, the writer, Chuck Pfarrer, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, they flew over to Hong Kong to meet me, and push me to do the job. They all loved my movies, liked my style, and they wanted an American action film with a new look. And I found the people from the studio were very sincere, very warm, and made me feel very relaxed about doing the film. So I took the job."

There will be time yet to cover the long career of John Woo in all the meaningful details. He was born in Guangzhou, China before purges in the country saw his family move to Hong Kong when he was five; at the age of 23, he started work in the film industry with his first short before directing features in 1974. A director for over four decades, he has directed features for both Asian and American cinema, with The Killer (1987) receiving considerable attention abroad. After the release of Hard Boiled (1992), Woo decided to move to the States despite not having a dream to work there before coming there. Chuck Pfarrer, a former Navy SEAL, had developed a script at Universal Pictures that was soon developed with Van Damme in mind. The script took a couple of renditions (such as being inspired by The Naked Prey (1965) and Aliens (1986)) before it found its final form, which was inspired by The Most Dangerous Game (as helped by producer Jim Jacks). Jacks, Pfarrer, and Van Damme all flew over to Hong Kong to meet Woo and try to get him to do it. Jacks helped to bring Woo onto the project, although the studio would have to be convinced to hire Woo because of their doubts - one about his handling of drama and the other about his command of English. Van Damme was the star brought on to star in the movie, although Pfarrer actually had Armand Assante in mind when writing the movie (for his part, Woo actually wanted Kurt Russell, but he was too booked). Woo had gone through a couple of scripts offered to him (one was a script involving switching faces...) before he accepted this one; Sam Raimi was hired by Universal as a potential successor to look over Woo in case things would go south for him, which is why he is credited as an executive producer, although obviously Raimi had confidence in Woo. Van Damme had the star power of script approval and even final cut privileges, which means that there are different versions of the film - Woo had to cut the film just to make sure it wasn't rated NC-17 (the last cut submitted to the MPAA that failed was called the international version, running at 99 minutes), while Van Damme insisted on a version with more of him, complete with close-ups too. This means that the theatrical cut is 97 minutes as opposed to a screening cut done by Woo, which had lasted 116 minutes; an unrated director's cut was released in 2021. A direct-to-video sequel was released in 2016 with none of the cast, and I'm sure none of you give a crap about that. Hard Target was the first Hollywood studio film made by an Asian director.

Even if he had trouble converting his directing talents to a Hollywood "sensibility", one can still see the talent involved in his distinct techniques, whether that involves slow-motion shots and birds that fly around before action starts. I'll be honest, the movie may be a "starring vehicle", but it actually is the second actor that takes control of general interest. No seriously, Henriksen is the more interesting presence in the movie, and this is in a movie where our lead is playing a Cajun drifter who just happens to be a former Marine with a greasy mullet, and one of the supporting actors is Wilfred Brimley playing a Cajun relative who doesn't even show up until a hour has passed. In a sense, it probably is a bit strange to see a movie about taking rich eccentrics and company hunting down homeless veterans (which happen to be in New Orleans after several hunts in other places). If Van Damme (a martial artist after his father enrolled him in classes at the age of 10 before also taking up ballet) is known for his rigid stature of doing one particular hero type for his movies, Woo at the very least managed to make him seem a bit more heightened in a way that will at least make one believe him to be in between say, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Steven Seagal (in other words, below the former but considerably higher than the latter). He moves well to the beat of the action without becoming just a man wrapped in the background of lurid fun, which makes it better than previous stuff like Bloodsport (1988), obviously.

There is a twisted elegance to Henriksen that dominates the interest in ways that probably made Van Damme jealous. Imagine someone as professional and dedicated to their work as Henriksen, who excelled in character roles such as Aliens, stealing the show away from a guy who kicks hard because of his pitch-black attitude. He lives on the edge, complete with a dandy weapon that makes him very entertaining to see against the lead, which is probably best represented by a scene where an explosion leads to his jacket being on fire and he just rips that thing off like it was a wad of gum on the shoe (which was an ad-lib by Henriksen). Vosloo is the other key adversary, and he does just as well here in conniving charm needed for the other sociopath in the movie. Hell, you could almost have made a movie with just them as the leads, in an offbeat sort of way, because one does have some fun with what they do together. Butler (making her feature starring debut) is the middle person between interesting presences that is adequate without becoming just a shell for nothingness (Lemmons gets to be the empty one, since authority figures in this kind of movie is like throwing beer on a fire). Brimley is clearly enjoying putting on an accent bordering on "hooting and hollering" that is silly enough to endear oneself to a movie that uses him to solid effect for the climax with Van Damme.

You will get the whole gumbo of things to note and possibly enjoy, whether that involves our lead biting a snake after asking someone to trust them before setting it up as a death trap, jumping over burning barrels before kicking a fuel canister to shoot at it, guys getting shot through keyholes, arrows being fired at home-made moonshine to help light people on fire, and a climax that happens in a Mardi Gras warehouse (it "helps" that the cops happen to be on strike) because the villain doesn't want to just take him down from the air. It really does flow like lurid ballet, packed with a tiny bit of philosophy (or something when the bad guy targets veterans that no one will notice for his weird hunts) mixed with the primal action. By the time the movie ends, you will either find yourself wanting to see the differences between this movie and other Van Damme movies or you will want to see further John Woo movies (he would do five further films in Hollywood before shifting his focus to make films in China by the end of the 2000s). Silly, bombastic, engaging, it really does make for a curious winner that will hit a certain kind of sweet spot in audience and never let go in Woo's attempt to make a modern Western that succeeds.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

The Mummy (1999)

Review #1748: The Mummy.

Cast:

Brendan Fraser (Rick O'Connell), Rachel Weisz (Evelyn Carnahan), John Hannah (Jonathan Carnahan), Arnold Vosloo (Imhotep), Kevin J. O'Connor (Beni Gabor), Jonathan Hyde (Dr. Allen Chamberlain), Oded Fehr (Ardeth Bay), Erick Avari (Dr. Terence Bey), Stephen Dunham (Isaac Henderson), Corey Johnson (David Daniels), Tuc Watkins (Bernard Burns), and Omid Djalili (Warden Gad Hassan) Directed by Stephen Sommers (#201 - G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra)

Review: 

Yes, I know, technically this isn't an "all the way horror movie". But it is a remake of the classic 1932 film of the same name as some sort of epic romantic adventure with help by Industrial Light and Magic. If you remember, the original movie involved Boris Karloff playing the title character, one that involved a mummy (Imhotep) raised from the dead that proceeded to live among folks for a decade before wanting to bring back his long-dead princess with a person that happens to be half-Egyptian and looks like said princess. Well, aside from the Book of the Dead helping in a resurrection, the movie isn't quite a straight-laced remake. Of course, this wasn't the first time this had happened, since Hammer Film Productions had done their own version that began in 1959 (although it was based on the sequels more so than the original, and this was followed by a number of sequels). It should be noted that the film that came from Universal Studios in 1999 was a culmination of a decade of attempts from producers James Jacks and Sean Daniel to make a modern Mummy movie that went through several directors and writers in consideration that revolved from George A. Romero to Clive Barker to Joe Dante; it should be noted that until 1996, Universal was aiming for a cheaply budgeted movie, and they were really aiming for an unstoppable villain at the level of The Terminator (incidentally, the movie was made for $62 million. So yes, one is probably wondering a bit about Sommers. Born in Indiana but raised in Minnesota, he was a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts before he went to direct his first film in Catch Me If You Can (1989), which attracted a little notice despite minimal release; he directed two features for Walt Disney Pictures involving literary figures (Huckleberry Finn, Jungle Book), and it was during the end of shooting Deep Rising (1998) that he found interest in the ongoing attempts to bring The Mummy onto the screen. So, yes, I suppose one can be glad that Sommers (a fan of the original film that had aimed to do a remake for years) wanted to make a fair adventure with tinges of horror, at least for a title character that goes around wanting flesh to regenerate before creating sand storms. Sommers would be credited for the screenplay while also doing work on the story with Lloyd Fonvielle and Kevin Jarre. 

So, now we have a mummy that was buried alive due to attempts with the Book of the Dead to bring back a lost love that has been watched over from the bodyguards of the pharaoh and its descendants for 3,000 years while a lost city holding wealth and the tomb is waiting to be found. Look, it all depends on how much one buys into its attempts at sweeping adventure that doesn't take itself too seriously while having a few CGI effects here and there. Honestly, I'm fine with it, albeit in the mindset that it is basically comfort food; it may be fluff, but it is decent fluff, one that has interest in making charm count more so than sitting back and looking at effects sequences for two hours. It may not be great scary fun, but being alright fun that is aware of its surroundings is decent enough for most folks, a blockbuster in the era that fits it, and at least one can recognize some fair effects and some ideas of spooky scenery; the scarabs are pretty chilling, and the title creature in its growing form is pretty creepy. Technically speaking, it compares favorably to the original 1932 film, and it likely stands up fair for the era it was made for; while I undoubtedly have more curiosity over the film that could have been with a different director, being a loose effective remake of the original 1932 film is still an effective film in the long run (two sequels would follow in 2001 and 2008 before Universal did a "reboot" in 2017). Of course, the highlight among the cast is Fraser. He manages to roll along with the quick pace and wavering attempts at humor with just enough timing and stature to make things count, playing with the material with a casual appreciative nature. Weisz fares fine, straddling the line in curiosity that at least has more to do than her counterpart in the original feature (which, incidentally, means Weisz and Fraser have a bit of chemistry together). Hannah (first known for his work in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) among television work) fits exactly to what is needed in mild comic relief without dragging the film down (or being easy bait in line for being taken down), while O'Connor does okay in sniveling middleman material. Vosloo is curious as the adversary, one that has to try and seem interesting in creeping terror despite being surrounded by a bunch of makeup that doesn't give him that much to really do. Part of me wishes this would have done more when it comes to actual horror, because the potential is there is you think about it. As a whole, it manages to push most of the right buttons in doing stirring entertainment in the guise of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), but then again most blockbusters probably honed a trick or two from that film, so being a step or two below something like that isn't a bad thing. It is a romp, and a romp is fine if one is in the mood for it. I wavered between just how "good" it was, but I guess calling it a good kind of average film (in either genre) is appropriate. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: Final Destination (2000).