Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy is one of the most popular remakes of classic Universal Monster movies, and several key elements show why it has stood the test of time. Released on May 7, 1999, The Mummy follows a group of adventurers led by Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) and Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) as they embark on an expedition to the ancient Egyptian city of Hamunaptra. However, the group ends up accidentally resurrecting the ancient mummified priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) as a supernaturally powerful mummy.
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The Mummy‘s success spawned a trilogy, though neither of the two sequels was as acclaimed as the 1999 original. Additionally, the Tom Cruise-led 2017 reboot, also titled The Mummy, didn’t match its success either. By contrast, The Mummy itself has remained enduringly popular for over 25 years since its debut, and while its unique combination of action, adventure, horror, and comedy is core to its legacy, there are also three other essential factors that show why The Mummy works so fantastically well.
Brendan Fraser & Rachel Weisz Have Phenomenal Chemistry
Romantic adventure movies are only as strong as their leading protagonists, and The Mummy has two all-timers in Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz as Rick and Evelyn. When we meet them individually in The Mummy, it’s clear that Rick and Evelyn couldn’t be more different; Rick a rugged American adventurer and former soldier in the French Foreign Legion, and Evelyn a demure but clumsy British librarian and aspiring archeologist. The banter of Rick and Evelyn simply getting used to each other makes for some of the funniest comic relief in The Mummy. (Rick’s explanation of his sudden kiss of Evelyn being something that “seemed like a good idea at the time” right before the hanging she rescues Rick from goes over about as well as you’d expect with Evelyn.)
However, Rick and Evelyn’s blossoming romance in The Mummy is a classic case of opposites attracting, and even more importantly, of Rick and Evelyn bringing out the best in each other under dire circumstances. Through Evelyn, Rick learns the importance of attention to detail and planning meticulously, a marked contrast to his usual strategy of pulling out his twin revolvers whenever the chips are down. Meanwhile, Evelyn discovers that she’s stronger than she gives herself credit for through her relationship with Rick, and by the end of the movie, she’s as much of a thrill-seeking adventurer as he is.
Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz‘s dynamic chemistry brings out all of Rick and Evelyn’s individual character traits and strengths as an adventure movie duo. Without them, The Mummy simply wouldn’t be the beloved horror-adventure thrill ride that it is regarded as a quarter century later. As a bonus, Rick and Evelyn’s chemistry also has an off-shoot in Rick and Evelyn’s relationship with Evelyn’s brother Jonathan (John Hannah), who enlivens The Mummy even more with plenty of comedic banter bounced off of both his sister and future brother-in-law.
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Arnold Vosloo Is a Perfect Villain as Imhotep
Just as engaging as The Mummy‘s two leads is the movie’s villain Imhotep, a sinister combo of the then-most state-of-the-art CGI around and Arnold Vosloo’s outstanding screen presence as an antagonist. From the beginning, The Mummy sells Imhotep as a (quite literally) back-stabbing suitor willing to go to any lengths for his love of Egyptian princess Anck-Su-Namun (Patricia Velasquez), even if it involves killing Egypt’s Pharoah and Imhotep waiting centuries to revive his deceased lover. While The Mummy‘s visual effects bring Imhotep to life as a genuine supernatural threat to the world, Arnold Vosloo’s performance makes the titular mummy both human and scary.
With every line of dialogue Imhotep has in the movie spoken in ancient Egyptian, Vosloo is tasked with selling a three-dimensional villain whom virtually no modern audience member can understand without subtitles. Vosloo handles the task with incredible range and even more incredible ease, communicating his evil intentions with a menacing grin, along with his heartbreak and vengeful bitterness after losing Anck-Su-Namun in the movie’s opening and ending (also conveyed entirely through Vosloo’s facial acting), which also adds a tragic aura to Imhotep’s tale. The effects of The Mummy might be what enables Imhotep to unleash the ten plagues of Egypt upon the world, but Arnold Vosloo’s performance in a dead language makes the supernatural mummy a humanized yet terrifyingly real monster.
The Mummy Uses the Ten Plagues of Egpyt Splendidly Well
On the flip side of the human and undead characters of The Mummy, the movie also makes great use of the ten plagues of Egypt as Imhotep’s ultimate weapon upon his resurrection. As part of the Hom-Dai mummification ritual he was buried under, Imhotep’s revival through the Book of the Dead empowers him with the ten plagues of Egypt, which kick off right away with a swarm of locusts following right on the heels of his return. The Mummy keeps the effects on some of its plagues more simple, with traditional make-up applied to create boils on the mob of zombified followers Imhotep commands, along with Rick, Jonathan, and their fellow explorers shocked to find their shot glasses filled with blood.
In other areas, The Mummy ramps up its visual effects budget on plagues like hail, flies, and darkness to really put Egypt through an apocalyptic nightmare. Admittedly, The Mummy stops short on fully deploying all ten plagues, leaving viewers to simply imagine what its versions of frogs, lice, death of livestock, and death of firstborns would have looked like had Imhotep showered Egypt with them, too. Nonetheless, The Mummy‘s rendition of the plagues is among the most unforgettable versions of them ever seen in live-action, with The Mummy‘s continued reputation as a fun, action-packed horror-adventure yarn partly based in how well it puts the plagues to use.
The Mummy is available to stream on Hulu and Disney+.
