I find reviewing this rather appropriate given the other movie review on the site so far. That being said this will not contain major spoilers, but will however hit on major characters and their interactions. From a broad perspective.
This is the Indiana Jones 2, of the 'The Mummy' franchise. The characters are all right, and the danger, adventure, and safety of the world are not in question. Yes Indiana Jones 2 had nothing to do with the safety of the world, but bear with me.
Think about this: Indiana Jones 1 and 3 (Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade, respectively) are commonly considered the best 2 of the series. 1 set the template and 3 actually followed. 2 and 4 lag behind, and I think the reason is this... They are missing the Indiana Jones standard plot version 1.7. Movies 1 and 3 can be boiled down to Indiana Jones being witty and incredibly lucky while running from Nazis chasing after an object of Bible Myth that if in the wrong hands could end life as we know it. The 2nd movie found Indiana being clumsy almost, bumbling in misadventure running from cultists chasing obscure Indian stones. To save...a village. Yes he also did some running from a crazy Chinese businessman. And #4 found Indiana being OLD, but almost superhuman sometimes...running from RUSSIANS, chasing ALIENS. What just happened? Am I in the wrong movie franchise?
But the point remains that the fundamental pillars upon which Indiana Jones is built are: Archeology, Bible Myth, Nazis, Indy Rocks.
In that same vein the fundamental pillars of The Mummy can be seen as: Bad library research, Mummies, Mad Arabs, Rachel Weisz is clumsy yet endearing, and a hell of a lot of sand.
The Mummy 3 was actually pretty entertaining. However it seemed to focus more on the O'Connell's son, Alex, than Rick and Evelyn. Which goes against template. It's the parents trying to follow their son on HIS OWN adventure and generally being overshadowed. It doesn't help the case that the writing of, Evy especially, is just strained and BAD. Yes, they have retired, their life is boring...we GET IT ALREADY.
There isn't any research, any books, in this one. All the information they need is given to them by a magical old immortal Chinese lady.
The "mummy" here isn't even a real mummy! It's Jet Li, cursed to live out his life as Terracotta. He doesn't even get to fight for 90% of the movie. There's ONE GOOD fight scene and it's only like 10 minutes long right at the end of the film.
There's no sand, and no Rachel Weisz! Evy's been replaced! NOOOOO!
The tense dialog that worked so well between Rick and Evy, doesn't quite work when they try it between Alex and his squeeze. Later in the film there are some genuinely nice moments with these 2 characters. But they had to try really hard to get there.
It's important to note I don't think this is a BAD movie. I even think it's better than Indiana Jones 2. There's no Short Round, the fate of the WORLD is still at stake. It's even got some bad ass kung fu and a pretty cool undead army. All pluses in my book.
If you can get to the flick for under $5, it's worth it. Otherwise the lack of Egypt...and more specifically Egyptology make it a little disappointing if you paid more. The Mummy is supposed to involve a cute girl in glasses reading out of a huge ancient book trying to figure out who Brendan Fraser needs to punch to save the world. This one just doesn't deliver that.
--PXA
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