05-21-01
I'm getting really tired of people dogging on The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.
When I was growing up, I loved going to the movies. In particular, I was in love with films that were extraordinary, either in the manner in which they played out, or by the sheer fantasticality of their content. Chief among them, action adventures...
I loved the James Bond movies because they dealt with topics that were theoretically possible, but so incredible as to never occur, in manners that were also theoretically possible, but so incredible as to never be employed. Having to thwart the actions of a crazy Aryan horsebreeder bent on blowing up the San Andreas Fault for his own nefarious purpose? Sheer brilliance! The climax of the movie being a being a knock-down-drag-out fight aboard a dirigible? Wonderful!
And Goonies? I love that movie to this day. Combining action adventure elements of movies like Bond flicks, and classic swashbuckling movies of years past into a sweet fable about a bunch of nerdy kids trying to find pirate treasure in order to save their beloved homes from evil real estate developers? Oh my GOD. Could I be even more in heaven?
Hell, I even liked Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer, Red Sonja, some horrid movie starring Lee Horsely that was a direct rip off of this genre, called Sword and the Sorceror. If Dino De Laurentis was involved somehow in a sword-and-sorcery epic, I was there.
So, when the Indiana Jones movies hit the big screen, I thought I was going to die the happiest girl in the world, right then and there. Action adventure swashbuckling movies that had a hot guy, pretty girls, nefarious villains, beautiful scenery and supernatural plot elements, and managed to be archaeological in reference? Whoa!
For me, The Mummy and its sequel are the Indy movies of today. Not to blaspheme, but they follow the genre: action, adventure, swashbuckling, hot guy, pretty girls, nefarious villians, beautiful scenery, supernatural plot elements and archaeology? Check on those.
I even like the twist that instead of having a hunky, know-it-all, archaeologist hero with a pretty, vapid tag-along, we have a hunky, vapid hero with a pretty, know-it-all archaeologist tag-along. Sure, our hero gets to save the day in great style. Sure, the pretty tag-along creates almost as much damage as she prevents from happening. And sure, there are dorky, caricatures-of-a-sidekick sidekicks. Hell, we even get mysterious protectors and keepers of information, a'la the dudes that protected the temple housing the Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. What more could I want?
All this fun, and Brendan Fraser? Woohoo. Besides, Rachel Weisz and Patricia Velazquez aren't too hard on the eyes either. Anck-su-namaroOOO!!!
And the Egyptophile in me can't complain too loudly either. Even if they do butcher the mythology in a most hideous fashion. Anubis, the evil god of war? Yeah, right. Only if you subscribe to the whole Stargate: SG1's* version of the Egyptian pantheon.
*In the world of Stargate, the Ancient Egyptian gods are actually Goa'uld, "...a race of alien creatures, parasites with technology far beyond that of Earth. Their advanced abilities often make them seem almost god-like to less developed cultures as gods. Most of their weaponry and science is misconstrued as magic or divine powers."**
I totally dig this show, btw. It is even better than the movie from which it is spawned, a movie that I adore. Kurt Russell may be the first Colonel Jack O'Neill, but in my book, Richard Dean Anderson is the superior of the two.
**So sayeth the SGC.
