He's closer to the bumbling Jack Burton that Kurt Russell created in John Carpenter's cult classic Big Trouble in Little China than the cool and composed Indy - and he's all the more likable because of it. Fraser himself is a fun hero - though he's physically molded to bear more than a passing resemblance to Indiana Jones, Fraser wisely plays him almost as a buffoon. Thankfully, the cast really saves The Mummy from Sommers' relentless overkill, providing the film with its only semblance of human warmth and emotion. That makes The Mummy the real precursor to today's anything-goes CGI era, as typified by George Lucas' dreadful Star Wars prequels and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man franchise. This is a far cry from early digital-assisted pics like Jurassic and even Cameron's Titanic, which felt more like flesh-and-celluloid creations with a few CGI bits thrown in. Even the film's locations and sets seem pumped up and artificial, with backdrops painted on with CGI goo and half the props appearing to have been created by computer. Sommers' barrage of CGI effects is almost non-stop, with nary a scene that doesn't seem to end prematurely, as just another prelude to bigger action spectacle to come. Sommers is a director who seems blissfully ignorant of the word "restraint." Though critics often cite T2 and Jurassic Park as being all digital flash at the expense of substance, compared to The Mummy they are intimate chamber dramas. Rick, Evelyn, and Jonathan, along with a rival group of careless American adventurers, must now do battle with the ancient foe and save mankind from Imhotep's reign of destruction. But now Imhotep is free from his eternal prison, and he's mighty pissed off. Seems the high priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) once started a forbidden relationship with Anck Su Namun (Patricia Velasquez), mistress to the Pharaoh Seti (Aharon Ipale), and paid dearly for it. Assigned to an archaeological dig at the ancient Egyptian city of Hamunaptra, things start to get complicated when, along with the brother-sister team of beautiful Egyptologist Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) and wisecracking Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah), O'Connell unleashes a centuries-old curse. Brendan Fraser stars as the hapless Richard "Rick" O'Connell, an American serving in the French Foreign Legion. The basic plot of The Mummy should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the iconic monster first made famous in Universal's horror yarns of the 1930s, although here he is given a bit of a postmodern spin.
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