Brendan Fraser month: The Mummy

A retrospective by Brooks Rich

Fraser plays Rick 'o' Connell, an adventurer who along with his traveling companions Evie and Jonathan, Rachel Weisz and John Hanna respectively, resurrect the high priest Imhotep, the awesome Arnold Vosloo, who thanks to a curse brings with him the power of immortality and the ten plagues of Egypt. Now Rick and his friends have to dodge mummies, brain washed people, scarabs, and giant clouds of sand to return Imhotep to the grave and save the world. Let's go!

My God I love this movie. Kicking off Brendan Fraser month with what I think is his best movie, the 1999 adventure film, The Mummy. They don't make movies like this anymore. The adventure movie has been replaced by superhero movies and explosion fests like the Fast & the Furious franchise. We need more swashbuckling films like this in the vein of Indiana Jones. And not just the sequel, The Mummy Returns, which is fun enough, or the third one, which is abomination of cinema.

A big criticism of this film is that the effects aren't great. I mean sure, Imhotep looks a little iffy and fake when he is first resurrected. But it's 1999. We can give some leeway to poor effects. Because there's also some great effects. The mummies later in the film look great and the giant wall of sand is a spectacular effect. And a great action piece. So I disagree with the criticism of the effects.

What works mainly about The Mummy is Fraser himself. He's a great swashbuckling protagonist with an 'aw shucks' way about him but he can kick ass and be awesome when he has to. He has amazing chemistry with Weisz and his moments with Vosloo sell the antagonism between Rick and Imhotep. I don't think this is Fraser's best performance in his career, we'll get to that film, but this I think is the best film he was in. It's a perfect adventure movie and Fraser fits right into the formula. It's on HBO right now. If you've never seen this, fix that immediately.

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