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Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz (Rick and Evelyn O'Connel) team up again as the tomb-raiding duo in this new saga to save the world from utter destruction. "The Mummy Returns" takes place nine years after the first film, and the O'Connels find themselves in a similar predicament as in the first "Mummy." This time however, the O'Connels' main goal is to rescue their son, Alex, from the evil clutches of the

undead mummy himself, Imotep (Arnold Vosloo). The storyline was thin at best, but the action scenes kept coming one after another.

The first storyline that had to be explained was that of the Scorpion King. He was the Egyptian bad-ass of all bad-asses. At one point of the film, Imotep himself even cowered in the face of the Scorpion King (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson). Even though The Rock shared top billing with Fraser, his appearance in the film was at best a cameo (much to the chagrin of you WWF fans).

Computer-generated graphics are here to stay, I'm afraid. We all just have to accept them as the new film "gospel" because everyone and their brother seems to be using them in films these days. The CGG in "The Mummy" Returns are not half bad. They add to the action scenes, and help to create some very interesting enemies including Anubis' huge "dog-man" army and thousands of pesky pygmy killing machines.

Alex O'Connel, played by newcomer Freddie Boath, didn't turn out to be as annoying as I thought he was going to be. In fact, his role in the film actually meant something to the thin storyline. He added comedy and brought a kid into focus in order to lure a younger audience. Freddie and John Hannah (Evelyn's greedy brother-in-law) had some good comedic scenes between one another.

My favorite scene in the movie was a wonderful

Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz star in the summer blockbuster from Universal The Mummy Returns

cat-fight (the first of two) between Weisz and Velasquez. Since they are both beautiful women, the scantily clad garments they had on made the scene even more appealing. These two characters butted heads in the flashback scenes as well as the scenes in 1935.

The film was rated PG-13 due to "adventure action and violence." I would give this movie three stars (out of five) because I enjoyed the movie without reading too deep into some of the negative points. I am also a fan of the Indiana Jones series, which "Mummy" cannot hold a candle to. Steven Sommers is no Steven Spielberg, but then again--who is?

Review by David Fago

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