Well, I've just acquired my tickets to see this movie next Tuesday, so I'll be giving you a look at it from my eyes then, but for now.... It's Moriarty's eyes you'll have to gaze with... Don't worry if everything seems a bit atmospheric, if the world seems a bit darker... It's just the vision of an evil genius... go with it.... flow with it... Succumb to the Professor's will....
Hey, Head Geek...
"Moriarty" here.
Summer is finally here again, and I don't just mean
for the first time since last year.
When I was young, summer movies were something
special. Or at least they seemed it. I was spoiled,
though. I was seven when the first STAR WARS was
released. I had SUPERMAN after that, then EMPIRE
STRIKES BACK, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, TIME BANDITS,
SUPERMAN II, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, EXCALIBUR -- all of
these priming me for what I consider the last great
summer movie summer, 1982.
America was in love with E.T. that summer, but I
preferred POLTERGEIST. More importantly, the two
films I loved most that summer bombed. THE THING and
BLADE RUNNER were critical disasters and financial
failures, and I was dumbfounded. America didn't get
Steve Martin's brilliant DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID,
but they sure did like FIREFOX with Clint Eastwood. I
felt lost. It was the first time the movies I loved
hadn't ruled the box office. My tastes took a radical
step away from the mainstream. At the same time,
Hollywood lost me on the "obvious" hits. There have
been plenty of great summer movies since -- don't get
me wrong. ALIENS, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, JURASSIC PARK,
THE FLY, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, BATMAN RETURNS,
THE ABYSS, T2, and plenty of others. There just
hasn't been a summer that seemed to come together for
everyone, where everytime you went to the movies, it
seemed to work.
Well, for the first time since '82, I'm getting the
feeling that summer is really here. I mean, MATRIX is
by any rational definition a "summer movie," even if
it was a March release. I've seen and thoroughly
enjoyed AUSTIN POWERS 2, BIG DADDY, THE BLAIR WITCH
PROJECT, IRON GIANT, and AMERICAN PIE among others,
and I've still got EYES WIDE SHUT, THE HAUNTING, RUN
LOLA RUN (which I will be reviewing very soon), LIMBO,
SUMMER OF SAM, PRINCESS MONONOKE, MYSTERY MEN, and THE
FIGHT CLUB to look forward to. Based on what I've
seen so far, we are finishing up the decade on a high
note in every way. Even the weaker pictures like
TARZAN are better than average. With a strong lineup
like this in the wings, summer has to get off to a
strong start. Yes, THE PHANTOM MENACE is just around
the corner, but I ain't waiting. I want my summer
NOW!
Thank God for THE MUMMY.
I have recently begun a mass brainwashing campaign. I
sent harmless looking flyers out to producers all over
town, each of them actually an elaborate hypothermal
hypnosis card that bends the mind of the recipient to
my will. Thanks to this approach, my phone rang last
week, and I heard the voice of Sean Daniel, producer
of THE MUMMY. Mumbling, "Im-ho-tep... Im-ho-tep..."
between words, he managed to say something about a
screening of his film... first showing of the locked
print... Wednesday night... and then a theater name.
Not wanting to push him too hard on his first call in,
I used the sleep word on Daniel. My line went dead,
and I started making arrangements.
One week later, my henchmen and I slipped into the
theater with no problems, settling in for what I hoped
was going to be an entertaining Saturday afternoon
matinee type film, the kind I loved so much at the age
of 12. From the moment the Universal logo gave way to
the blinding sun, pulling back to reveal an Egypt as
elaborate as anything PRINCE OF EGYPT showed us, as
perfect as any shots of Naboo I've seen so far, I was
hooked. I not only got exactly what I wanted, I was
genuinely surprised by my reaction.
As the movie's rousing psuedo-LAWRENCE OF ARABIA setup
plays out, I felt the years melt away, and I was 12
again, looking up at the big screen, not thinking
about all the rumors about the film or the script
drafts I read or the FX tests I saw or the stories
Harry told me about the set or all the recent shuffle
at Universal or any of the rest of the crap, the
baggage that any of us who deal in this stuff every
day carry into a screening. It was summer. The movie
in front of me was a real, old-fashioned summer movie,
making no apologies for entertaining me.
Writer/director Stephen Sommers aims for the back wall
of the stadium with this one, and I'd say he finally
puts it all together in a way that guarantees him a
step up to the A-list.
This film has such an
infectious, willing sense of fun that only the most
hardened, jaded gorehound, grousing about the PG-13 is
going to leave unsatisfied on some level.
Brendan Fraser is having a very good run of films
right now. This is his first major picture since GODS
& MONSTERS (I wouldn't count BLAST FROM THE PAST as
major), and he plays the dashing adventurer with an
easy, lived-in charm. He doesn't oversell it at any
point, and the movie is so much better for it. Some
actors would have hammed this up and tried to play it
as a comedy. Fraser stays perfectly grounded from
moment to moment, and he sets a tone that the rest of
the cast match note for note. Rachel Weisz is the
kind of actress who I've seen and known of for a
while, but who's never really made an impression on
me... well... certain scenes in STEALING BEAUTY
notwithstanding. Here, she's a worthy successor to
the mold that Karen Allen set in RAIDERS, which no one
else was able to play again. She's adorable, but she
can handle herself and is no screamer. Weisz never
once plays this in helpless mode, and it makes her
immensely likable. It also helps that Sommers doesn't
make her the bumbling bookworm her first scene
implies. Her brother, played by FOUR WEDDINGS AND A
FUNERAL's John Hannah, is the film's most consistently
rewarding comic presence. He's the slightly drunken,
slightly shady brother who sets the whole thing in
motion, but Hannah's no klutz, either. When it's time
for THE MUMMY to be serious, it's serious. When it's
time for the characters to try and be smart, they do.
You actually want these characters to live not because
they are the "good guys," but because you like them.
They win your rooting interest over the course of the
film.
Conversely, the film's villains are played ably by
Arnold Vosloo, Kevin J. O'Connor, and a shitload of
groovy ILM special effects. Nick Dudman did a fair
amount of live-action mummy work that really sells the
illusion of the title creatures, but make no mistake
-- ILM's work here is as subtly groundbreaking as the
big guns they're rolling out later this month. CGI
makeup may not be perfect yet, but it's pretty damn
cool, and there are some really inventive moments
involving it in the film (watch for Vosloo's scarab
snack -- tasty) that add a visual snap to the picture
that pushes it into geek heaven. Yes, you've seen
some great stuff in the trailers. There's plenty more
of it in the film. Vosloo provides an interesting
human center to the fireworks, with his almost-chubby
frame and his Billy Zane eyes. I liked his presence
in the picture, and the fact that he doesn't speak
English (subtitles, folks) is very, very cool. Thank
you for not having a 4,000 year old creature of evil
take an afternoon to watch TV or listen to a radio and
somehow "absorb" our language. Thank you for just
having the common sense to treat your own concept with
enough respect to ground it in reality whenever
possible. I liked the moment where the sniveling
Benny (imagine if Sapito from RAIDERS had survived for
the whole movie, always trying to screw Indy in any
way possible) accidentally stumbles across a way of
talking to the resurrected Imhotep. O'Connor is
turning into Sommers' mascot after doing this and DEEP
RISING back to back, and I liked him here more than I
have before in anything. He's like a live action Ren,
complete with the fez.
The story is simple, well-told, and never works too
hard to overwhelm. The scares are serious, but not
too severe for younger genre fans, who are going to go
absolutely nuts for this movie. I would imagine that
any of us who love the old Harryhausen films are going
to be enjoying this film long after this summer.
There's a great last sequence involving some
reanimated Egyptian soldiers that is just stunning.
Fraser's interaction with them is seamless, and the
actual creature animation is handled with real wit and
style. It's nice that ILM didn't just farm this film
out to trainees while the "real" guys worked on STAR
WARS. Adrian Biddle's photography is as lush as his
work for Ridley Scott, and Jerry Goldsmith's score is
appropriately exciting, even if I can't hum a note of
it right now due to the fact that "Duel of the Fates"
is stuck in my head. DAMN YOU, JOHN WILLIAMS, FOR
BEING SO TALENTED!
What can I say to sum up? Guys, sit back and enjoy it
all. There's so much money to go around this summer,
and the studios are working hard. Yes... there's
going to be a few WILD WILD WESTs and DEEP BLUE SEAs
we don't want to step in, but for the most part it
looks like one of those magical harmonious times when
all is right, and we benefit. To my mind, that's a
good thing. Maybe that's what we need right now.
Stephen Sommers tapped into that pure joy that came
from seeing a movie when you were young, when it was
all so big, so easy, so much fun. Tap into a bit of
it yourself next weekend. Hell, if you want to
splurge, try ELECTION as a perfect counterpoint, a
small film that's nothing but character, executed as
perfectly in its own way as THE MUMMY is.
Right now, I have to go figure out how I'm going to
get into a press screening of STAR WARS. Until
then...
"Moriarty" out.
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