1999 was a big year for movies. It was the year that The Matrix‘s slow-motion bullet influenced action movies for years to come. It was the year American Beauty won Best Picture at the Academy Awards and Oscar fans have been arguing about it ever since. It was the year Pokémon jumped from Gameboys and TV to the big screen. And worst of all, it was the year that disappointed a generation of Star Wars fans with the release of The Phantom Menace.
To celebrate that landmark year in film’s 20th Anniversary, The Pop Break continues its year-long retrospective of 1999’s most influential (at least to us) films with editor-in-chief Bill Bodkin reflecting on The Mummy.
The Mummy is a big, fun movie.
This is not an elegant or eloquent thesis—but it’s the stone cold truth about Universal’s “reboot” of their famed horror franchise. It’s a CGI-laden epic that’s bolstered by a dynamic leading couple and a wonderful sense of nostalgia. While it wasn’t a groundbreaking action movie like The Matrix, it’s still one of the most re-watchable popcorn films released that year. It’s aged better, and has remained a staple on television unlike other high gloss, big budget popcorn flicks geared to the action movie crowd released in 1999 like The Thomas Crown Affair, Entrapment, or End of Days.
The reason for this goes back to the first sentence—it’s fun. The Mummy doesn’t take itself too seriously. That’s not to say this is a slapstick yuck-fest like Austin Powers. No, there are real stakes in this film. There are intense action sequences, and some solid scares in there too. The mythology of the villain instills a sense of urgency in our characters, and fuels the tension in the climactic scenes.
Yet, like an Indiana Jones movie, there’s still this innate likability, breeziness and nostalgic sense of grand adventure to it. There’s a throwback sensibility in this film that just isn’t rooted in the source material. The 1999 The Mummy could’ve easily been filmed in black and white and played before crowds in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s and would still be met with the same warmth.
The straw that stirs that drink is the chemistry between the two leads and the main supporting actor—Brendan Fraiser, Rachel Weisz, and John Hanna respectively. For the trio, The Mummy was a major departure for all three of their careers. Fraiser had been on the “make fetch happen” trajectory as Hollywood definitely was looking to make him a leading man after his break-out performance in Encino Man in 1992. His roles in dramas like School Ties and Gods and Monsters, and comedies like Airheads, George of the Jungle, and Blast from the Past garnered neither huge financial nor critical acclaim. Yet, there he was in the lead of a big budget action film.
Weisz, years from her Oscar win and current run as one of the best dramatic actresses in Hollywood, was still new to American audiences. Some would remember her from Bernardo Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty, but most would remember her as one of the stars of the massive box office flop, Chain Reaction. As for Hanna, American audiences would recognize him from Four Weddings and a Funeral, and maybe the Gwenyth Paltrow vehicle, Sliding Doors.
The Mummy was not in the wheelhouse of any of these actors, yet their chemistry is undeniable. Fraiser and Weisz instantly mesh together. Their fierce, flirty, opposites attract/they’ll be in love by the end of the film relationship is a total throwback to the epics of the ’40s-’60s. However, this wasn’t the typical bookworm damsel in distress saved by the all-powerful male character. Fraiser’s Rick needs Weisz’s Evelyn as much as she needs him. Her intelligence, her unflagging determination, and her willingness to fight in the face of certain death are vital to the good guys winning. Weisz fuels her character with this unending reservoir of energy, and infectious likability. Fraiser, meanwhile, takes the classic adventurer archetype and highlights it with sarcasm as well as this mysterious sense of failure and regret. Those mysteries are revealed in this and the equally fun sequel The Mummy Returns. Hanna does his best at providing the comic relief here as the obnoxious, yet charming rapscallion brother of Evelyn. He’s the ne’er do well who does well when you need it the most, and is the catalyst of the physical, slapstick comedy of the film.
The chemistry carries the film, but the action and horror sequences are no slouch either. While more CGI-filled than Indiana Jones, it definitely has the same vibe. We get creeped out in the hallways that house the dead—whether it’s because of the deadly bugs that feed on the living, or the fact re-animated killing machines can pop out of virtually anywhere. The action sequences truly are epic in scope–whether it’s a wild fire-fight on a river boat, or the mummy trying crash a plane carrying our heroes–it’s big effects, and big action that keep you thrilled.
The Mummy is easily one of the Top 10 most rewatchable films of 1999. If you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend you cook up some popcorn, and enjoy this wild romp through the desert.
