The Mummy

This isn't your father's Mummy. Ostensibly a remake of the 1932 original with Boris Karloff (recently re-released on video, or catch it on the big screen at the Harvard Film Archive June 29), this eye-candy cornucopia bears scant resemblance to its sedate, chilling predecessor. The film opens with a jaw-dropping re-creation of the City of the Dead, Hatumnaptra, replete with towering statues, golden temples, and wealthy sarcophagi. Imhotep, a temple priest, is entombed alive for dallying with the Pharaoh's mistress -- both their souls are condemned to eternal suffering, and the city pulls a Shangri-la and disappears into the dunes. Fast-forward 3000 years to 1924: Brendan Fraser is O'Connell, an Indiana Jones-styled adventurer seeking the lost treasure of Hatumnaptra. He's thrown into a Cairo prison and narrowly escapes the gallows when clumsy-but-comely British librarian Evie (Rachel Weisz) realizes he can help her access rare, hieroglyph-covered artifacts. They set off for the desert with her Glenlivet-guzzling, golddigger brother Jonathan (John Hannah) in tow. En route they meet a gang of greedy American cowboy types, as well as a mysterious band of husky Islamic warriors trying to protect Egypt from the ancient curse of Imhotep.

But naturally the curse holds sway: Evie unwittingly reads aloud from the Book of the Dead, thus regenerating Imhotep (who must, uh, acquire the organs and fluids of others to become whole) and loosing the Ten Plagues of Egypt upon the land, including locusts, flies, and flesh-eating scarab beetles. If that wasn't bad enough, Evie is also chosen as the sacrifice for Imhotep's mistress: will O'Connell rescue his damsel in time? Some fine actors are wasted here, with pedestrian writing and ham-handed direction that often seems more suited to Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. But the special effects and cinematography are grand and magical. Mummies and daddies be warned: this is probably too gross for the kids.

-- Peg Aloi