• Source: The Mummy Returns

The Mummy Returns is a 2001 American fantasy action-adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers. It is the sequel to the 1999 film The Mummy, and the second film in The Mummy film series starring Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connell.
Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Oded Fehr, and Patricia Velásquez reprise their roles from the previous film, starring alongside Freddie Boath, Alun Armstrong, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Dwayne Johnson in his film acting debut. Most of the crew from the first film also return, though composer Jerry Goldsmith was replaced by Alan Silvestri.
The film was released on May 4, 2001 by Universal Pictures. Like its predecessor, The Mummy Returns was a commercial success, grossing $435 million worldwide, becoming the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2001 and the highest-grossing film of the film series. The film received mixed reviews from critics. It was followed by a 2002 prequel film The Scorpion King, a spin-off that is set 5,000 years prior and whose eponymous character, played by Johnson was introduced in this film. A sequel starring Fraser and Hannah, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, was released in 2008.




Plot


In 3067 B.C., a fearsome warrior known as the Scorpion King leads an army to conquer the world. However, they are eventually defeated and exiled to the desert of Ahm Shere. Dying, the King vows to give Anubis his soul in return for the power to defeat his enemies. He accepts, conjuring an oasis and golden pyramid, and giving the Scorpion King an army of jackal-like warriors to conquer Egypt. However, once his task is finished, Anubis claims his soul, and the army is returned to the Underworld.
In 1933 A.D., seven years after the defeat of Imhotep, Rick O'Connell and his wife, Evelyn, explore ancient ruins with their son, Alex, finding the Bracelet of Anubis.
In London, Alex messes with the bracelet & it locks onto his wrist. Showing him visions directing him to Ahm Shere. Evelyn is attacked and captured by a cult who resurrect Imhotep with the Book of the Dead; they wish to use his power to defeat the Scorpion King, which would give them command of Anubis' army.
The cult, led by museum curator Baltus Hafez, includes enforcer Lock-Nah and Meela Nais, the physical reincarnation of Imhotep's love Anck-su-namun. Rick and Alex set out to rescue Evelyn with the help of her brother Jonathan, who had gotten his hands on a mysterious golden scepter, and the Medjai Ardeth Bay, who has returned to help them.
Rick frees Evelyn before she’s sacrificed & they fight a long battle against Imhotep, but Alex is soon kidnapped and forced to lead the cult with the bracelet attached to his wrist. The O'Connells pursue them with Rick's associate Izzy. Along the way, Alex secretly leaves clues to imhotep’s next destination for his parents, who follow in Izzy's dirigible.
Imhotep uses the Book of the Dead to restore Anck-su-namun's soul into Meela's body. By doing so, he unwittingly allows Evelyn to unlock the memories of her previous life as Princess Nefertiri, the bracelet's keeper and Pharaoh Seti I's daughter.
At the edge of the Oasis, Imhotep find out they are being pursued by Rick, and he uses his powers to attack the dirigible, and causes it to crash into the jungle of the oasis; Izzy chooses to stay behind to repair the dirigible. While the O'Connells & Ardeth prepare to rescue Alex & ambush the cult, but both groups are attacked by pygmy mummies. Rick retrieves Alex while Ardeth kills Lock-Nah.
They escape from the pygmies, who kill all the cult members except for Hafez, Imhotep, and Anck-su-namun. With the sun quickly rising, Rick & Alex race to the pyramid before the sun reaches it. Saving Alex’s life & allowing the bracelet to release from his hand. Anck-su-namun, Imhotep, and Hafez then arrive and kill Evelyn before entering the pyramid.
Inside the pyramid, Imhotep's powers are taken from him, forcing him to face the Scorpion King as a mortal. Hafez uses the bracelet to conjure Anubis' army, which appears in the desert outside of the Oasis. Rick finds Imhotep summoning the Scorpion King so attacks him. The Scorpion King, now an enormous scorpion monster, interrupts the fight. Imhotep tricks him into attacking Rick while outside, Ardeth and the Medjai battle Anubis's resurrected army. While Rick and the Scorpion King fight, Hafez is caught in the melee and killed.
Meanwhile, Jonathan and Alex steal the Book of the Dead from Anck-su-namun and use it to resurrect Evelyn. Rick discovers hieroglyphs explaining that Jonathan's scepter is the mystical Spear of Osiris. The only weapon capable of killing the scorpion king. As Jonathan & Alex work to get the spear to open & Evie fights with Anck-su-namun. Ardeth & the medjai defeat Anubis’s army, but while his Allie’s celebrate. He senses trouble & races to the nearby sand dune, and sees more of Anubis’s monsters coming to them. After some long & troublesome work from Jonathan, Rick gets the spear and uses it to slay the Scorpion King, sending him and the army of Anubis back into the Underworld.
As the oasis begins to implode and the pyramid crumbles, Rick and Imhotep cling to the ledge of a pit that leads to the underworld. Rick implores Evelyn to escape before it is too late, but she risks her life to pull him to safety. Seeing this, Imhotep pleads for Anck-su-namun to do the same, but she abandons him. Heartbroken, Imhotep looks at Rick & Evie with realization before lets go and plummets into the underworld. While fleeing, Anck-su-namun inadvertently falls into a pit of scorpions, killing her.
At the last moment, Izzy arrives with the repaired dirigible and rescues the O'Connells just before the oasis and the pyramid are destroyed—though not before Jonathan swipes the pyramid's diamond capstone. They depart into the sunset, with Ardeth Bay saluting them before riding off.




Cast



Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connell, a treasure hunter and former Legionnaire
Rachel Weisz as Evelyn O'Connell / Nefertiri; respectively, Rick's wife, and the daughter of Pharaoh Seti I
John Hannah as Jonathan Carnahan, Evelyn's brother
Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep, High Priest of Osiris and lover of Anck-Su-Namun
Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bay, a Medjai chieftain and warrior
Patricia Velásquez as Meela Nais / Anck-su-namun, the reincarnated form of Pharaoh Seti I's mistress, and secret lover of Imhotep
Freddie Boath as Alex O'Connell, Rick and Evelyn's son
Dwayne Johnson as Mathayus of Akkad / The Scorpion King, an ancient warrior who sold his soul to Anubis
Alun Armstrong as Baltus Hafez, the cult leader
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Lock-Nah, a cult enforcer
Shaun Parkes as Izzy Buttons, Rick's friend and a dirigible pilot
Bruce Byron as Red Willits, a thief contracted by the cult to claim the Bracelet of Anubis
Joe Dixon as Jacques Clemons, a thief contracted by the cult to claim the Bracelet of Anubis
Tom Fisher as Jacob Spivey, a thief contracted by the cult to claim the Bracelet of Anubis
Aharon Ipalé as Pharaoh Seti I, the Pharaoh of Egypt, whom Imhotep killed in 1290 BC




Music



The Mummy Returns: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on May 1, 2001 by Decca Records.
The score was composed and conducted Alan Silvestri, who did not reuse any of Goldsmith's themes from the first film. It was performed by the Sinfonia of London and orchestrated by William Ross.
The soundtrack contains Silvestri's as well as a version of the song "Forever May Not Be Long Enough" by the rock band Live, which slightly differs from the song's album version.
A 2-CD expansion was released by Intrada Records in 2018.




Reception






= Box office

=
The Mummy Returns earned $23.4 million on its first day of release, then made $26.8 million the day after. This made it the highest Friday and Saturday grosses, surpassing both Toy Story 2 and The Lost World: Jurassic Park respectively. Later that year, those records were simultaneously given to Planet of the Apes and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. During its opening weekend, the film made $68.1 million, making it the second-highest opening weekend of all time, only behind The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Moreover, it surpassed Hannibal to have the highest opening weekend for a 2001 film, joining Monsters, Inc., Rush Hour 2 and Planet of the Apes to become one of the only four films of that year to make $60 million in their first three days of release. The film also became one of four consecutive Universal films of the year to cross the $40 million in an opening weekend, with the others being American Pie 2, The Fast and the Furious and Jurassic Park III. Upon opening, the film reached the top of the box office, beating out Driven. For its second weekend, it collected a total of $33.7 million, outgrossing A Knight's Tale in the process. The Mummy Returns would remain in the number one spot at the box office for a total of two weeks until Shrek took it.
The film grossed $202 million in the United States and Canada box offices and $233 million internationally, grossing over $435 million worldwide, making it the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2001.




= Critical response

=
The Mummy Returns received mixed reviews from critics. It currently holds a 46% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 141 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The site's consensus states: "In The Mummy Returns, the special effects are impressive, but the characters seem secondary to the computer-generated imagery." Metacritic reported an average rating of 48 out of 100 based on 31 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert, who awarded the first film three stars, gave the second film only two, saying that "The mistake of The Mummy Returns is to abandon the characters, and to use the plot only as a clothesline for special effects and action sequences." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film two and a half stars (out of four), calling it "hollow, lightweight entertainment—not unpleasant, but far from the summer's definitive action/adventure flick.
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a positive review, praising its "constant plot turns, cheeky sensibility and omnipresent action sequences." Todd McCarthy of Variety praised "the nonstop action of the final hour", saying that it "bursts with visual goodies." Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald said, "Twelve-year-olds weaned on Nintendo may not mind, but anyone who remembers the tactile thrill of an alarmingly real boulder rolling down on Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark will be left cold."
Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal gave the film a negative review, saying that it "has all of the clank but none of the swank of the previous version." Charles Taylor of Salon.com was also not impressed, calling The Mummy Returns "everything the first Mummy was fun for not being."




Accolades






Home media


The Mummy Returns debuted on VHS and DVD on October 2, 2001. It became the fastest-selling DVD ever in the United States, selling 2 million copies after its first week of release, while also surpassing Gladiator. The film would briefly hold this record for two weeks until it was taken by Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace when it sold 2.2 million copies during its first week. There are two separate versions of this DVD release either in widescreen or fullscreen formats.
The film was subsequently released on the high-definition Blu-ray format in July 2008, and on UHD Blu-ray in 2017.




Video games


Two video games based on the movie were released. The first was released on the Game Boy Color, developed by GameBrains, and was released within the film's theatrical release. The other is for the PlayStation 2, developed by Blitz Games and was released in October 2001, to coincide with the film's home media release. Both titles were published by Universal Interactive.




Subsequent works






= Spin-off

=
A spin-off/prequel film centering on Dwayne Johnson's character, the Scorpion King, was released on April 19, 2002. It focuses on the King's origins, as he rises to power before the events of The Mummy Returns' prologue. The film received mixed reviews but was only a moderate commercial success. It spawned The Scorpion King film series, with direct-to-video sequels and with different actors playing the title role.




= Sequel

=
A sequel to The Mummy Returns was released on August 1, 2008. Brendan Fraser and John Hannah both reprised their roles, while Rachel Weisz was replaced by Maria Bello as Evelyn, and Luke Ford played the now-adult Alex O'Connell. The film received generally negative reviews, and was the lowest-grossing film of the trilogy.




Notes






References






External links



Official website
The Mummy Returns at IMDb
The Mummy Returns at AllMovie
The Mummy Returns at Box Office Mojo
The Mummy Returns at Rotten Tomatoes
The Mummy Returns at the TCM Movie Database
The Mummy Returns at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• The Mummy
• The Mummy (seri film)
• Oded Fehr
• Mark Coulier
• Bob Ducsay
• Film petualangan
• Brendan Fraser
• Rachel Weisz
• Scorpion I
• Dwayne Johnson
• The Mummy Returns
• The Mummy (franchise)
• Imhotep (The Mummy)
• List of The Mummy (film series) characters
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
• The Mummy (1999 film)
• The Mummy (TV series)
• The Mummy (1932 film)
• Rick O'Connell
• Stephen Sommers