The Mummy (1999 film) Totally Explained

Everything about The Mummy 1999 Film totally explained

The Mummy is a 1999 American adventure film/horror film written and directed by Stephen Sommers, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, with Arnold Vosloo in the title role as the reanimated mummy. The movie features substantial dialogue in ancient Egyptian language, spoken with the assistance of a professional Egyptologist. It is a loose remake of the 1932 film of the same name which starred Boris Karloff in the title role. Originally intended to be part of a low-budget horror series, the movie was eventually turned into a blockbuster adventure film.
Filming began in Marrakech, Morocco on May 4, 1998 and lasted seventeen weeks; the crew had to endure dehydration, sandstorms, and snakes while filming in the Sahara desert. The visual effects were provided by Industrial Light & Magic, who blended film and computer-generated imagery to create the titular Mummy. Jerry Goldsmith provided the orchestral score. The Mummy opened on May 7, 1999 and grossed $43 million in 3,210 theaters; the movie went on to gross $415 million worldwide. Reception to the film was mixed, with reviewers alternatively praising or complaining about the special effects, the slapstick nature of the story and characters, and the stereotyped villains. The box-office success led to a 2001 sequel, The Mummy Returns, as well as, and the spin-off film The Scorpion King. Another sequel,, will open on August 1, 2008. Universal Studios also opened a roller coaster, Revenge of the Mummy, in 2004. The movie and its sequel's novelizations were written by Max Allan Collins.

Plot

The movie begins in Egypt, circa 1290 BC. High priest Imhotep is having an affair with Anck-su-namun, the mistress of Pharaoh Seti I. When the Pharaoh discovers this, Imhotep and Anck-su-namun murder the monarch. Anck-su-namun then kills herself, intending for Imhotep to resurrect her. After Anck-su-namun's burial, Imhotep breaks into her crypt and steals her corpse. He and his priests flee across the desert to Hamunaptra, the city of the dead, where they begin the resurrection ceremony. However, they're caught by Seti's guards before the ritual can be completed, and Anck-su-namun's soul is sent back to the Underworld.
   As punishment for their sacrilege, Imhotep's priests are mummified alive, and Imhotep himself is forced to endure the curse of Hom Dai: his tongue is cut out, and he's buried alive, wrapped like a mummy, along with a swarm of flesh-eating scarabs. The horror of the ritual is that it grants eternal life, forcing him to endure the agony of his wounds for all time. He is buried under high security, sealed away in a sarcophagus below a statue of the Egyptian god Anubis, and kept under strict surveillance by the Medjai, descendants of Seti's palace guards—if Imhotep were ever to be released, the powers that made him immortal would allow him to unleash a wave of destruction and death upon the Earth.
   Three thousand years later, in 1923, an American, Rick O'Connell, is serving as a captain in a unit of the French Foreign Legion, which travels to Hamunaptra in search of the treasure rumored to be there. When they reach the fabled city, a group of Arabs attack. Left in charge when the unit's commanding officer deserts during the battle, Rick retreats into the city when the Arabs overrun his unit. Surrounded by his attackers, O'Connell thinks he'll be killed, but suddenly the attackers flee. A confused Rick suddenly hears a disembodied voice and appears to be attacked by the sand, which forms into a face as he flees. He is left to wander out of the desert; unknown to him, the battle was witnessed by a group of the Medjai.
   Three years later, Cairo librarian and aspiring Egyptologist, Evelyn "Evie" Carnahan is presented with an intricate box and map by her bumbling brother Jonathan, who says he found in Thebes. After observing the map leads to Hamunaptra, Jonathan reveals he actually stole it from Rick, who is currently in prison. After they contact him, Rick makes a deal with Evelyn to reveal the location of Hamunaptra, in exchange for Evelyn striking a deal with the warden to keep Rick from being hanged. Rick upholds his bargain and leads an expedition to Hamunaptra, where Rick's group encounters a band of treasure hunters led by the famed Egyptologist Dr. Allen Chamberlain and guided by Beni Gabor, a cowardly former Legion soldier who served with Rick and also knows the location of the lost city, whom Rick harbours an intense hatred for, since Beni left him to die during the fight earlier in the film.
   Shortly after reaching Hamunaptra, both groups are attacked by the Medjai, led by Ardeth Bey, who warns them of the evil buried in the city. Rather than heed Bey's warning, the two expeditions continue to excavate in separate portions of the city. Evelyn is looking for the Book of Amon-Ra, a golden book capable of taking life away, but unexpectedly comes across the remains of Imhotep instead; much to her shock, Imhotep's corpse is actually a still-decomposing skeleton instead of a preserved mummy. The team of Americans, meanwhile, discover a box containing the black Book of the Dead, accompanied by canopic jars carrying Anck-su-namun's preserved organs; each of the Americans takes a jar as loot.
   At night, Evelyn takes the Book of the Dead from the Americans' tent and reads a page aloud, accidentally awakening Imhotep. Although both groups return to Cairo, the mummy hunts down the Americans who opened the box, slowly regenerating with each person he kills. Beni survives a meeting with Imhotep by pledging allegiance to him and helps him track down the Americans and the canopic jars in Cairo. Evelyn hypothesises that if the Book of the Dead brought Imhotep back to life, the Book of Amon-Ra can kill the high priest once again; soon after this, Evelyn is captured by Imhotep, who intends to sacrifice her to resurrect Anck-su-namun, and so they return to Hamunaptra. Rick and Jonathan rescue Evelyn after an intense battle with Imhotep's mummies. Evelyn reads from the Book of Amon-Ra, which takes away Imhotep's immortality, and Rick mortally wounds him. Quickly decaying, Imhotep leaves the world of the living, but not before vowing revenge.
   As they're leaving, Beni accidentally sets off an ancient booby trap and is trapped by a swarm of flesh-eating scarabs as Hamunaptra collapses, which devour him in the darkness (Beni's fate is very ironic as he died in the treasure room, where money is what he gluttoned for the entire film). The heroes escape and ride off into the sunset on a pair of camels, unaware that their saddlebags are packed with the treasures that Beni looted earlier.

Cast

Brendan Fraser as Richard "Rick" O'Connell: An adventurer who served in the French Foreign Legion. Producer James Jacks offered the role of Rick O'Connell to Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck but the actors were not interested or couldn't fit the role into their respective schedules. The actor understood that his character "doesn't take himself too seriously, otherwise the audience can't go on that journey with him".
Rachel Weisz as Evelyn Carnahan: A clumsy yet intelligent Egyptologist. Evelyn undertakes the expedition to Hamunaptra to discover an ancient book, proving herself to her peers. Rachel Weisz wasn't a big fan of horror films but didn't see this film as such. As she said in an interview, "It's hokum, a comic book world."
John Hannah as Jonathan Carnahan: Evelyn's bumbling older brother, whose primary goal is riches; he signs on for the trip to Hamunaptra after learning that the book Evelyn is looking for is fabled to be made of gold. Jonathan is also a thief; he steals the key needed to open the Book of Amun-Ra from Rick in prison.

Arnold Vosloo as High Priest Imhotep: One of Pharoah Seti I's most trusted advisers, Imhotep betrays his sovereign out of love for Anck-su-namun. He is cursed and slowly killed for his treachery, but is resurrected 3,000 years later to continue his plans. South African stage actor Vosloo understood the approach that Sommers was going for in his screenplay, but only agreed to take on the role of Imhotep "if I could do it absolutely straight. From Imhotep's point of view, this is a skewed version of 'Romeo and Juliet'." Universal Studios gave him the go-ahead, but only if he kept the budget around $10 million. The producer remembers that the studio "essentially wanted a low-budget horror franchise"; and Wes Craven was offered the film but turned it down. He had wanted to make a Mummy film since 1993, but other writers or directors were always attached. Finally, Sommers received his window of opportunity and pitched his idea to Universal with an 18-page treatment. Universal liked this idea so much that they approved the concept and increased the budget from $15 million to $80 million.

Principal photography

Filming began in Marrakech, Morocco on May 4, 1998 and lasted 17 weeks. Photography then moved to the Sahara desert outside the small town of Erfoud, and then to the United Kingdom before completion of shooting on August 29, 1998. The crew couldn't shoot in Egypt because of the unstable political conditions. To avoid dehydration in the scorching heat of the Sahara, the production's medical team created a drink that the cast and crew had to consume every two hours.
   Production Designer Allan Cameron found a dormant volcano near Erfoud where the entire set for Hamunaptra could be constructed. Sommers liked the location because, "A city hidden in the crater of an extinct volcano made perfect sense. Out in the middle of the desert you'd never see it. You would never think of entering the crater unless you knew what was inside that volcano." the producers wanted a new look for the Mummy so that they'd avoid comparisons to past movies.
   To create the Mummy, Berton used a combination of live action and computer graphics. Then, he matched the digital prosthetic make-up pieces on Vosloo's face during filming. Berton said, "When you see his film image, that’s him. When he turns his head and half of his face is missing and you can see right through on to his teeth, that’s really his face. And that’s why it was so hard to do." Goldsmith also used sparing amounts of vocals, highly unusual for most of his work. Other reviews positively noted the dark, percussive sound meshed well with the plot, as well as the raw power of the music. The limited but masterful use of the chorus was also lauded, and most critics found the final track on the CD to be the best overall. and that the constant heavy action lent itself to annoying repetition.
   Although its commercial success and popularity with audiences was positive, critical reception was mixed. The Mummy holds a 53 percent "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 48 Metascore at Metacritic. Roger Ebert, a film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote, "There is hardly a thing I can say in its favor, except that I was cheered by nearly every minute of it. I can't argue for the script, the direction, the acting or even the mummy, but I can say that I wasn't bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased." Likewise, Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B-" rating and said, "The Mummy would like to make you shudder, but it tries to do so without ever letting go of its jocular inconsequentiality." Bob Graham of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film high marks for the acting as well as the special effects. Stephen Holden from The New York Times wrote, "This version of The Mummy has no pretenses to be anything other than a gaudy comic video game splashed onto the screen. Think Raiders of the Lost Ark with cartoon characters, no coherent story line and lavish but cheesy special effects. Think Night of the Living Dead stripped of genuine horror and restaged as an Egyptian-theme Halloween pageant. Think Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy grafted onto a Bing Crosby-Bob Hope road picture (The Road to Hamunaptra?) and pumped up into an epic-size genre spoof." Publications like The Austin Chronicle and Dallas Observer came to the conclusion that despite good acting and special effects, the movie lacked cohesion; talking about the special effects, the Observer lamented "If only generating a soul for the film itself were so easy." Other publications such as Jump Cut felt that Industrial Light and Magic's lock on special effects proved detrimental to The Mummy; "The mummy", Ernest Larson wrote for the Jump Cut, "is standard-issue I.L.&M.". Kim Newman of the British Film Institute judged the picture inferior to the original, as all the time was spent on special effects, instead of creating the atmosphere which made the original film such a classic. "If someone complains of a foul odor, you can be sure an Arab stooge is about to enter a scene. Fraser, equally quick with weapon, fist or quip, may save the day, but even he can't save the picture", USA Today wrote. The Mummy was nominated for Best Sound at the Academy Awards and Best Visual Effects at the BAFTAs, losing both to The Matrix. Jerry Goldsmith won a BMI Film Award for the soundtrack, and the film won Best Make-Up at Saturn Awards, out of nine nominations including Best Fantasy Film. Other nominations included Best Sound Editing at the Motion Picture Sound Editors' Golden Reel Awards, Best Visual Effects at the Golden Satellites and Best Action Sequence on the MTV Movie Awards.

Adaptations

The Mummys box office performance led to numerous sequels and spinoffs. In 2001, the sequel The Mummy Returns was released; the film features most of the surviving principal characters, as a married Rick and Evelyn confront Imhotep and the Scorpion King. The two films inspired both an which lasted two seasons, and a spin-off prequel, The Scorpion King (2002), telling the story of the Akkadian warrior as he was crowned king.
A second sequel,, is set to be released in 2008, with the story taking place in China, and Rachel Weisz being replaced with Maria Bello. A prequel to The Scorpion King,, is also in production.
Two video game adaptations of The Mummy were published by Konami and Universal Interactive in 2000: a beat 'em up for the PlayStation and PC developed by Rebellion Developments, as well as a Game Boy Color puzzle game developed by Konami Nagoya. The film also inspired a roller coaster, Revenge of the Mummy in two Universal Studios Theme Parks, Hollywood and Orlando.

Historical Inaccuracies

During one scene within the tomb, a glass mirror is used to illuminate a vast room filled with treasure. This film is concerned with the reign of Seti I of the Middle Kingdom, but glass technology didn't exist in Egypt until the reign of Tuthmosis III in the New Kingdom.
   Imhotep is said to be a priest during the Middle Kingdom under Seti I, however, the real Imhotep lived during the Third Dynasty in the Old Kingdom and was a vizier and magician.
   When hearing Hebrew being spoken at one point in the film Imhotep comments that it's “the language of the slaves.” This doesn't fit with the Middle Kingdom period of the film, it's most likely that the Hebrews were not under the rule of the Egyptians until the New Kingdom during the reign of Rameses II.
   In the film The Book of the Dead is seen as something secret and hidden. In truth, scenes from the Book of the Dead were written on many tomb walls during the New Kingdom. The Book of the Dead was a tool to get into the afterlife, not to resurrect individuals like the film suggests.
   Egyptians had only four canopic jars, but in the resurrection scene, there are five.

Further Information

Get more info on 'The Mummy 1999 Film'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://the_mummy__1999_film.totallyexplained.com">The Mummy (1999 film) Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.