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Tale of the Mummy (2000)

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Russell Mulcahy's Tale of the Mummy (2000)

Every mummy movie (good or bad) has at least a few good parts in it. This is a pretty bad mummy movie (it's not quite a howler, but close), but some things in it are good enough that it's worth seeing at least once.

Tale of the Mummy suffers a lot in comparison to 1999's The Mummy. This one is set in the 1930s (for a few minutes) then in modern London. At the outset, a team of excavators (led by Christopher Lee of 1959's The Mummy) has found a mummy's tomb--unlike any other tomb. This scene is very eerie and nerve-wracking. Almost all of the team quickly die terrible deaths (unfortunately, they break into parts that disintegrate into dust--a little too reminiscent of the fighting mummies who are sliced and diced in the 1999 movie).

Oh, well, another day at the dig.

Jump forward to the present day where another team of scientists opens the same tomb (they are wearing something like space suits--so this looks more like a moon excavation). This time we see more of the tomb: the mummy's sarcophagus is suspended by ropes from the middle of a womb-like chamber--funny how the scientists hear the same type of strange noises that Brendan Fraser heard at Hamunaptra. The difference is that the noises were used for a good laugh in the 1999 Mummy; here they are supposed to be scary (unfortunately). There are lots of dead bodies littering the walls (skewered by spears into the walls) and floor of this mummy's tomb--and one scientist quickly loses his mind while trying to take what appears to be an enchanted necklace (the red gem must glow in the dark--either that or Duracells were invented by the ancient Egyptians).

Somehow (and this defies belief) the scientists manage to get the mummy (whose name is Talus--and he is only wrappings, no body) back to England where he is promptly put on display in the British Museum. Why he didn't wipe out the workers of the mummy-freight company is never explained. But it doesn't matter; once he arrives, he decides to kill Londoners (sometimes people who participated in the robbing of his tomb--sometimes innocent cleaning ladies; you see, he is supposed to be an eee-vil mummy). None of it makes much sense...but the good bits are still there.

Because he is only wrappings, he can fly through the air as litter. He can take the shape of curtains or blinds--or in the only humorous scene (and it is too brief) as the cloth-towels-on-a-roll that are often supplied in gas station restrooms. 

As he kills more people, he begins to reassemble his body (which is better-defined in its wrapped form). This is too much like the 1999 movie (and you can easily see why the movie went straight to video).

The ending at a London pyramid construction site (don't ask) goes on too long, and the body count is hard to tally (and I think there was a possibility of a sequel embedded at the end), but it somehow manages to limp through. In what other mummy movie will you find the human hero (a detective) kills his girlfriend (who has until her death appeared to be the movie's heroine in an Evelyn Carnarvon-type role) because the mummy commands it? This, to my knowledge, is the only one. 

MUMMY TOMBS RATING:

The movie is rated R (V).  

Children 12 and up who are not bothered by action-movie violence (most victims are smothered) could probably see this movie. But the bleak story line may bore them. 

 

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Latest Update: 15 May 2008

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