The Mummy is a hugely underrated adventure movie, but that doesn't mean it's perfect.
What happened to Imhotep's final plague?
Whose idea was that curse?
And what's with those Egyptian side-characters?
We have questions.
From a contemporary vantage point, it's hard to watch The Mummy without noticing that the
movie is very much haunted by the specter of colonialism: In fact, the plot literally
wouldn't advance if the English and American characters didn't reflexively feel that it
was their right to go to Egypt and do basically whatever they wanted.
Evy and Jonathan are reportedly part-Egyptian, via their mother, but they're played by white
English actors using English accents and clearly read as essentially English.
Like many characters in the franchise, they see the riches of Egyptian civilization as
both a thing of the past and entirely up-for-grabs.
Imhotep's rise acts partly as a commentary on all that: When you blunder into a culture
and history you don't fully understand, you can unleash more than you intend to.
"No!
You must not read from the book!"
You can also see the lingering presence of empire in the histories of Rick and Winston;
the former first comes across Hamunaptra when he's serving in the French Foreign Legion,
and the latter is a former British officer hanging around in Egypt because he misses
the daring battles of his glory days.
Egypt isn't quite home in The Mummy — it's a place where you're supposed to have colorful,
dangerous adventures that take you out of your ordinary life.
And for just about all the white characters, Egypt mostly exists as a playground; one in
which you can make your name and find a fortune.
It sure is nice that the Medjai dedicate their lives to making sure Imhotep doesn't rise
from the dead, but all of this could have been avoided if their ancient predecessors
simply hadn't used the dreaded Hom-Dai curse in the first place.
Imhotep's priests were mummified alive — isn't that punishment enough for the man himself?
Did someone really need to include flesh-eating scarabs and magical incantations to make Imhotep's
death just a little bit worse than it would be already, when the consequences could be
so dire?
If you have two means of slow, gruesome, and painful execution to choose from, it seems
that you should always choose the one that can't potentially backfire and give your enemy
immortality, invincibility, and the chance to destroy the world.
Why risk it for one more twist of the knife?
The Mummy features several well-written and prominent Egyptian characters.
Ardeth Bay is skilled, charismatic, mysterious, and even surprisingly funny.
Meanwhile, Imhotep is a compelling, well-motivated villain with terrific screen presence.
Even Dr. Terence Bey, the museum curator and Evy's beleaguered supervisor, has some great
scenes.
But it's hard to avoid the fact that a lot of the other Egyptian characters are basically
jokes — and those jokes often have a nasty racial component.
The Warden is the undesirable travel companion who acts as a constant butt of the movie's
humor; it's particularly uncomfortable that Jonathan keeps saying that he smells bad.
Even his death by flesh-eating scarabs, which sounds horrific in theory, hits like a comedic
beat.
When Imhotep's return to life and power seemingly convinces most of Cairo to go along with him,
their mass mumbled chanting and lifeless shambling seem like a visual gag: They're essentially
zombies.
It's great that the movie boasts some bold, interesting characters of color.
It's just unfortunate that many of the supporting characters fall into some pretty ugly stereotypes.
Nobody should quibble too much about the technical details in a film that includes mummies, resurrection
spells, and ancient curses.
Still, you may find yourself asking: is the map to Hamunaptra really going to remain intact
after more than 3000 years?
Actually, it turns out that this isn't as unlikely as it may seem.
Thousands of pieces of Ancient Egyptian papyrus have survived into the modern day, thanks
to the arid Egyptian weather.
While the paper might decay quickly in more humid environments, it's much safer in the
desert.
But if you've raised your eyebrows at that pristine map in The Mummy, your suspicions
weren't completely unfounded, as there's a little bit of Hollywood clean-up going on
here.
Papyrus documents from as far back as 4500 years ago have survived into the present day,
but it's fair to say that they don't tend to be in sparkling condition.
Uncharacteristically, when Imhotep takes poor Mr. Burns' eyes, The Mummy misses the chance
for a great — if cruel — gag.
Burns says early on that, without glasses, he couldn't even see well enough to play cards,
and when his glasses are broken in the mad scramble after Imhotep rises, it becomes clear
that he wasn't exaggerating.
His view of the world is a blurry mess.
Of course, Burns' vision is about to get even worse, as Imhotep tears out his eyes and tongue
to replace his own, kickstarting his journey back to life.
The film only shows the aftermath, but it's surprisingly harrowing.
It also inevitably raises a big question: If Imhotep took Burns' eyes, shouldn't he
have Burns' terrible, swimmy vision?
A cursed mummy who's barely able to see his own crumbling hand in front of his decaying
face is exactly the kind of comedic beat The Mummy could pull off, so it feels like a shame
to miss it.
.
The best the audience gets is a hint, as, when Imhotep is getting used to his new eyes,
he squints slightly at Evy — which feels like a nod to Burns' poor eyesight.
But it's not exactly the payoff that the earlier setup deserved.
What makes Imhotep evil?
From a modern-day standpoint, it's hard to condemn the fact that he slept with the Pharaoh's
mistress: Imhotep and Anck-su-namun were genuinely and passionately in love, while the Pharaoh
seemed to only treat her as property.
Even though it's almost always a bad idea to dabble in resurrection magic, Imhotep's
initial quest to bring Anck-su-namun back to life feels like a grand romantic tragedy,
not the beginning of descent into supervillainy.
When he comes back from the dead, however, he becomes a literal monster.
Imhotep seems to take pleasure in causing fear and suffering, and his ultimate plan
is to take control of the entire world.
So why the change?
Answer: the Hom-Dai.
The curse that was inflicted on him didn't just give him the potential for superpowered
resurrection — it fated him to bring about death and even all the plagues of Egypt.
In essence, the Hom-Dai doomed the world partly by taking away Imhotep's free will.
Chalk that up as another win for the Medjai.
The Mummy is a real delight of a movie, but part of what makes it so enjoyable is that
it never really dwells on any of the carnage that takes place along the way.
That serves the movie's tone well, but after a certain number of rewatches, it's hard to
not notice how blithe the protagonists can be about all that death and destruction.
"Americans."
When the Warden dies a truly horrific death, they're not shaken so much as confused.
Within minutes, Jonathan is cracking a joke at his expense; within an hour or two, Rick
and Evy are having a flirtatious interlude by the fire.
The same apathy is clear when the American expedition team starts dying off, too.
At this point, the heroes have interacted with these people a fair amount, both on-
and off-screen, and you might expect them to feel something about their deaths.
Or you might think they would feel at least some guilt at having inadvertently kickstarted
Imhotep's devastating reign of terror.
In both cases, not so much.
How long does someone have to be dead before it's okay to rob their grave?
This may be an awkward question to bring up at a dinner party, but it's also something
to think about while watching The Mummy.
After all, the protagonists kick off the action by infiltrating a notoriously forbidden gravesite
and excavating a corpse.
Some of them are hoping for treasure, while others are just hoping for knowledge.
But all of them are trespassing on a sacred cultural site and disturbing a grave.
Is that really the proper, heroic thing to be doing?
Honestly, the outcome of events in The Mummy suggests that it's probably not.
Yes, the lead characters eventually escape healthy, whole, and in possession of plenty
of treasure and sequel potential.
But look at what they had to go through to achieve that happy ending… and look at how
many of their fellow grave-robbers got lost along the way.
The Hom-Dai guaranteed Imhotep the power to summon the plagues of Egypt, and even before
his death, he was skilled in the art of resurrection.
And those life-sucking abilities also seem closely tied to the original curse.
But where do the sandstorms come from?
"I love the whole sand wall thing, it was beautiful.
Bastard."
When Winston is flying Rick, Ardeth Bay, and Jonathan in to try to rescue Evy, Imhotep
does some impressive glowering and conjures up a massive storm to try to knock the plane
out of the air.
It's sort of a callback to something that happens when Rick first came across Hamunaptra:
He witnesses random bursts of sand flying into the air, and eventually, it all seems
to form a giant, despairing face.
It's a great visual, but if you stop to think about it you might find yourself asking: why
is Imhotep a master of the sand... and why can he control it when he's still technically
dead?
He can also turn into sand, pouring through a keyhole and even whisking himself away in
a sudden flurry of wind.
Again, it's a cool effect.
But where does it actually come from?
The prophecy predicts that a resurrected Imhotep will bring the return of the ten plagues of
Egypt.
Most of them hit quickly: All the water turns to blood, flies and frogs swarm, boils strike
most of the population, and an eclipse blots out the sun.
Most of this takes place on-screen, and it's fair to assume that more is happening elsewhere.
But this plague progression still leaves the viewer with some unanswered questions.
For starters, why doesn't the main cast get affected by them?
Evy and Jonathan are both half-Egyptian, and, in The Mummy Returns, it's revealed that Rick
is actually descended from the Medjai.
All of them have apparently lived there for years.
Shouldn't they at least have a few boils on them?
But the biggest issue is with the tenth plague: the death of the firstborn sons.
The movie never mentions this one, even though it could have provided some amped-up third
act stakes: What if they had to race to stop Imhotep, partly to keep this plague from devastating
Egypt and potentially killing Jonathan, the source of the movie's comedic relief?
Instead, it just never comes up, making for something of an odd plot hole.
The 1932 Boris Karloff version of The Mummy was an out-and-out horror movie, and some
of its chills remain in the 1999 update.
This Mummy leans more towards old-fashioned adventure than horror, but it doesn't hesitate
to incorporate more than a few skin-crawling scenes.
And some of them are very dark indeed.
For one thing, if you have a fear of being buried alive, the prologue is a genuinely
torturous experience.
Seeing Imhotep and his priests mummified and sealed into their coffins is bad enough, and
the cruel cherry on top is the later revelation that Imhotep stayed conscious long enough
to scratch a message into the inside of his coffin.
Then there are the scarabs themselves: giant bugs that immediately burrow under your skin.
Nobody loves that.
But the most wrenching scene might be the sad fate of Mr. Burns, Imhotep's first victim.
As if it's not bad enough that the poor guy loses his eyes and tongue, he then has to
unknowingly entertain his attacker.
With bandaged eyes and awkward speech, he's clumsy, traumatized, and overwhelmingly grateful
for some company and kindness.
When Beni reveals that Prince Imhotep is actually there to finish the job he started, Burns'
terror is devastating — and makes for a monster moment worthy of the original movie.
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