The Mummy (1999 film)

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The Mummy
Image:The mummy.jpg
Promotional poster
Directed by Stephen Sommers
Produced by Sean Daniel
James Jacks
Written by Kevin Jarre (story)
Lloyd Fonvielle
(story)
Stephen Sommers (script/story)
Starring Brendan Fraser
Rachel Weisz
John Hannah
Arnold Vosloo
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography Adrian Biddle
Editing by Bob Ducsay
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) May 7, 1999 (USA)
Running time 124 minutes
Country Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States
Language English
Budget $80,000,000 (estimate)
Gross revenue $415,885,488 (worldwide)
Followed by The Mummy Returns
Official website
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Mummy is a 1999 American 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 Mummy (1932), which starred Boris Karloff in the role.

The film opened on May 7, 1999 and grossed a total of USD $43 million in 3,210 theaters. The film went on to gross a total of $415 million worldwide. It was followed in 2001 by a sequel, The Mummy Returns and The Mummy: The Animated Series, followed by The Scorpion King in 2002. Another sequel, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is expected in 2008. Universal Studios opened a roller coaster, Revenge of the Mummy, in 2004. The movie and its sequel were novelized by Max Allan Collins.

Contents

[edit] Plot

The film begins in 1290 BC. High priest Imhotep (Vosloo) is having an affair with the mistress of Pharaoh Seti I, Anck-su-namun (Patricia Velasquez). When the pharaoh discovers this, Imhotep and Anck-su-namun assassinate him. Anck-su-namun then kills herself, intending for Imhotep to resurrect her. After her burial, Imhotep breaks into her crypt and steals her corpse. He and his priests then flee across the desert to Hamunaptra, the city of the dead, where they commence the resurrection ceremony. However, they are caught by Seti's guards before the ritual can be completed, and her soul is sent back to the Underworld.

As a punishment for this 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 is 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 the statue of the Egyptian god Anubis, and kept under strict surveillance by the Medjai, descendants of Seti's palace guards. If he 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 1921, Rick O'Connell (Fraser) is serving as a sergeant in a unit of the French Foreign Legion who have voluntarily journeyed to Hamunaptra in search of the treasure rumored to be stored there. When they reach the fabled city, a group of Arabs attack. When the unit's commanding officer deserts during the battle, Rick is left in charge. Retreating into the city, he runs out of ammunition right before the statue of Anubis. Upon seeing the statue, the attackers flee and Rick is left to walk out of the desert. Unbeknownst to him, the battle was witnessed by the Medjai.

Three years later, Cairo librarian and aspiring Egyptologist, Evelyn "Evie" Carnahan (Weisz) and her bumbling brother Jonathan (John Hannah) contact Rick while he is imprisoned. When he reveals that he knows the location of Hamunaptra, Evelyn strikes a deal with the warden to keep him from being hanged. He is then recruited into an expedition that quickly becomes a race against a group of Americans led by the famed Egyptoligist Dr. Allen Chamberlain (Jonathan Hyde) and guided by Beni Gabor (Kevin J. O'Connor), a former Legion Seargent under the command of Rick, who was Rick's best friend, and also knows the way to Hamunaptra.

Shortly after reaching Hamunaptra, both groups are attacked by the Medjai, led by Ardeth Bey (Oded Fehr). Rather than heed Bey's warning, they continue to excavate in search of the Book of Amon-Ra, a golden book capable of taking life away. The team of Americans discover a wooden chest under the statue of Anubis adorned with a curse. Skeptical, Chamberlain opens the lid, just after Beni scrambles out shouting, "Beware of the curse! Beware!". When the dust clears, they find the Book of the Dead, accompanied by several canopic jars. Rick, Evelyn and Jonathan also find something of their own. While excavating beneath the base of the statue of Anubis, they find Imothep's sarcophagus. Using the key that Jonathan found in Cairo, they open it, and find out that Imothep's body was not properly mummified, and that he had suffered the most terrible of all Egyptian curses, the Hom Dai.

At night, Evelyn takes the book from the Americans tent, and reads a page aloud, unintentionally awakening Imhotep. The mummy promptly begins sucking out the life force and thus, killing Chamberlain and his colleagues who opened the box. Beni survives a meeting with Imhotep by pledging allegiance to him and helps him track down the remaining Americans. Imhotep eventually brings the Ten Plagues upon Egypt and captures Evelyn, intending to use her to resurrect his long-dead lover, Anck-su-namun. Rick and Jonathan rescue Evelyn and, after an intensive battle with Imhotep's mummies, thwart his resurrection attempts. Evie reads from the Book of Amon-Ra, which Rick assumed would kill Imhotep. Imhotep thinks he has failed to do anything, but Evie in fact took away Imhotep's immortality, and Rick kills him.

As they are leaving, Beni falls behind to plunder the treasures of the lost city and is trapped by a swarm of flesh-eating scarabs. They surround him and kill him as his torch flame goes out. 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.

[edit] Cast

See also: Characters related to The Mummy (1999 film)
Image:Mummymovie1.jpg
Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser), Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) and Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah)
Actor Role
Brendan Fraser Richard "Rick" O'Connell
Rachel Weisz Evelyn Carnahan
John Hannah Jonathan Carnahan
Arnold Vosloo High Priest Imhotep
Kevin J. O'Connor Beni Gabor
Oded Fehr Ardeth Bey
Jonathan Hyde Dr. Allen Chamberlain
Erick Avari Dr. Terrence Bay
Bernard Fox Captain Winston Havlock
Stephen Dunham Mr. Henderson
Corey Johnson Mr. Daniels
Tuc Watkins Mr. Burns
Omid Djalili Warden Gad Hassan
Aharon Ipalé King Seti I
Patricia Velásquez Anck-Su-Namun

[edit] Production

[edit] Origins

In 1992, producer James Jacks decided to update the original Mummy film for the 1990s.[1] Universal Studios gave him the go-ahead but only if he kept the budget around $10 million.[2] The producer remembers that the studio "essentially wanted a low-budget horror franchise."[2] He brought horror filmmaker/writer Clive Barker on-board to direct. Barker’s vision was quite violent and gory with the story revolving around the head of a contemporary art museum built like a pyramid who turns out to be a cultist trying to reanimate mummies.[3][1] Jacks recalls that Barker's take was "dark, sexual and filled with mysticism,"[2] and that, "it would have been a great low-budget movie."[3] After several meetings, Barker and Universal lost interest and parted company. Filmmaker George A. Romero was brought in with a vision of a zombie-style horror movie similar to Night of the Living Dead, but this was considered too scary by Jacks and the studio who wanted a more accessible picture.[2]

Joe Dante was the next choice, increasing the budget for his idea of Daniel Day-Lewis as a brooding Mummy.[2] This version (co-written by John Sayles) was set in contemporary times and focused on the notion of reincarnation with elements of a love story.[3] It came close to being made with some elements, like the flesh-eating scarabs, making it to the final product.[1] However, at that point, the studio wanted a film with a budget of $15 million and rejected Dante’s version. Soon after, Mick Garris was attached to direct but eventually left the project.[4] At one point, Wes Craven was offered the film but turned it down.[3] Then, writer/director Stephen Sommers called Jacks in 1997 with his vision "as a kind of Indiana Jones or Jason and the Argonauts with the mummy as the creature giving the hero a hard time."[2] He had seen the original film when he was eight-years-old and wanted to recreate the things he liked about it only on a bigger scale.[5] He had wanted to make a Mummy film since 1993 but other writers or directors were always attached. Finally, he got his window of opportunity and pitched his idea to the studio with an 18-page treatment.[1] Universal liked this idea so much that they approved the concept and increased the budget from $15 million to $80 million.[6]

[edit] Casting

Jacks offered the role of Rick O'Connell to Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck but they either weren't interested or couldn't fit it into their respective schedules.[2] Jacks and Sommers were impressed with the money that George of the Jungle was making at the box office and cast Brendan Fraser as a result.[2] The actor understood that his character "doesn't take himself too seriously, otherwise the audience can't go on that journey with him."[7]

Rachel Weisz was not a big fan of horror films but did not see this film as such. As she said in an interview, "It's hokum, a comic book world."[8] South African stage actor Arnold 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."[2]

[edit] Principal photography

Filming began in Marrakech, Morocco (doubling for 1925 Cairo) on May 4, 1998 and lasted 17 weeks, filming in the Sahara desert (where the ruins of Hamunaptra were built) outside the small town of Erfoud in blazing 130 degree heat and in the United Kingdom before completing on August 29, 1998.[9] They could not shoot in Egypt because of the unstable political conditions and so they filmed in Morocco.[10]The production's medical team created a drink that the cast and crew had to consume every two hours to avoid severe dehydration.[7] In addition to the heat, sandstorms were also a daily inconvenience. Snakes, spiders and scorpions were reportedly a problem and many crew members had to be airlifted out after being bitten. The production had wranglers on set to catch these critters at the end of every day of shooting.[10] Brendan Fraser nearly died during a scene where his character is hanged. Weisz remembers, "He stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated."[8] The production had the official support of the Moroccan army and the cast had kidnapping insurance taken out on them.[3]

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 would never see it. You would never think of entering the crater unless you knew what was inside that volcano."[9] A survey of the volcano was conducted so that the dimensions that an accurate model and scale models of the columns and statues could be replicated back at Shepperton Studios where all of the scenes involving the underground passageways of the City of the Dead were shot. These sets took 16 weeks to build with columns being made out of fiberglass covering an interior metal structure rigged with special effects inside and then they were destroyed on camera for the climactic scene.[9]

Another large set was constructed in the U.K. on the dockyard at Chatham which doubled for the Giza Port on the River Nile. This set was 600 feet in length and featured "a steam train, an Ajax traction engine, three cranes, an open two-horse carriage, four horse-drawn carts, five dressing horses and grooms, nine pack donkeys and mules, as well as market stalls, Arab-clad vendors and room for 300 costumed extras."[9] While the film used a lot of CGI, the scenes where Rachel Weisz's character is covered with live rats and four-inch live locusts were real.[10]

[edit] Special Effects

The filmmakers reportedly spent $15 million of the $80 million budget on special effects.[11] They wanted a new look for the Mummy so that they would avoid comparisons to past movies. John Andrew Berton, Jr., Industrial Light & Magic's Visual Effects Supervisor on The Mummy, started developing the look three months before filming started. He said that they wanted the Mummy "to be mean, tough, nasty, something that had never been seen by audiences before." Berton used motion capture in order to achieve "a menacing and very realistic Mummy."[9] Specific photography was conducted on actor Arnold Vosloo so that the special effects people could see exactly how he moved and replicate it.

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."[9] Make-Up Effects Supervisor Nick Dudman produced the physical creature effects in the film and this included three-dimensional make-up and prosthetics. He also designed all of the animatronic effects as well.

[edit] Soundtrack

The Mummy (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Image:Goldsmithmummy.jpg
Soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith
Released May 4, 1999
Genre Soundtrack
Length 57:37
Label Polygram
Producer Jerry Goldsmith
Professional reviews

[edit] Track listing

  1. Imhotep 4:20
  2. The Sarcophagus 2:17
  3. Tauger Attack 2:23
  4. Giza Port 2:01
  5. Night Boarders 4:08
  6. The Caravan 2:52
  7. Camel Race 3:26
  8. The Crypt 2:26
  9. Mumia Attack 2:19
  10. Discoveries 3:41
  11. My Favorite Plague 3:59
  12. Crowd Control 3:12
  13. Rebirth 8:33
  14. The Mummy 6:19
  15. The Sand Volcano 5:41

[edit] Reception

The Mummy opened on May 7, 1999 and grossed a total of USD $43 million in 3,210 theaters. The film went on to gross a total of $415 million worldwide (Domestic: $155 million; Foreign: $260 million).[12]

Although, it's commercial success and popularity with audiences was positive, critical reception was mixed. The Mummy holds a 53 percent "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes[13] and a 48 Metascore at Metacritic.[14] 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 cannot argue for the script, the direction, the acting or even the mummy, but I can say that I was not bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased."[15] 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."[16]

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."[17] USA Today gave the film two out of four stars and felt that it was "not free of stereotypes. 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."[18]

In the original release of The Mummy in England, around five to ten seconds of footage was cut during the hanging scene in the Egyptian prison, including a single line from the prison warden. The cut takes away any footage of Brendan Fraser actually hanging by his neck. This was then added back into the Ultimate Edition DVD.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d "The Mummy That Wasn't", Cinescape, May 3, 1999. 
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Hobson, Louis B. "Universal rolls out new, improved Mummy", Calgary Sun, May 1, 1999. 
  3. ^ a b c d e Slotek, Jim. "Unwrapping The Mummy", Toronto Sun, May 2, 1999. 
  4. ^ Chase, Donald. "What Have They Unearthed?", Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1999. 
  5. ^ Snead, Elizabeth. "Updating A Well-Preserved Villain", USA Today, May 7, 1999. 
  6. ^ Argent, Daniel. "Unwrapping The Mummy: An Interview with Stephen Sommers", Creative Screenwriting, 1999. 
  7. ^ a b Braund, Simon. "Equally Cursed and Blessed", Empire, July 1999. 
  8. ^ a b Jones, Alison. "Great Excavations", The Birmingham Post, June 26, 1999. 
  9. ^ a b c d e f "Behind the Scenes", The Mummy Official Site, 1999. Retrieved on 2007-05-24. 
  10. ^ a b c Portman, Jamie. "Mummy Unearths Horror, Humour", Ottawa Citizen, May 5, 1999. 
  11. ^ Slotek, Jim. "Mummy Unwraps a New Fraser "Cartoon" Character", Toronto Sun, May 8, 1999. 
  12. ^ The Mummy. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2006-11-28.
  13. ^ The Mummy. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2007-6-24.
  14. ^ The Mummy: Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2007-06-24.
  15. ^ Ebert, Roger. "The Mummy", Chicago Sun-Times, May 7, 1999. Retrieved on 2006-11-29. 
  16. ^ Gleiberman, Owen. "The Mummy", Entertainment Weekly, May 7, 1999. Retrieved on 2006-12-19. 
  17. ^ Holden, Stephen. "Sarcophagus, Be Gone: Night of the Living Undead", The New York Times, May 7, 1999. Retrieved on 2006-11-29. 
  18. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan. "Effects New Curse of The Mummy", USA Today, May 7, 1999. 

[edit] External links

Image:Wikiquote-logo-en.svg
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
The Mummy
v • d • e
The Mummy series
Original pentalogy: The Mummy (1932) The Mummy's Hand (1940) • The Mummy's Tomb (1942) • The Mummy's Ghost (1944) • The Mummy's Curse (1944)
Remake trilogy: The Mummy (1999) • The Mummy Returns (2001) • The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)
Characters: Rick O'Connell • Evy Carnahan-O'Connell • Mathayus (The Scorpion King) • Ardeth Bay (Medjai) • Characters related to The Mummy
Spin-off prequel: The Scorpion King (2002) The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian (TBA)
Spin-off television: The Mummy: The Animated Series (2001)
Video games: The Mummy (2000) • The Mummy Returns (2001) • The Mummy: The Animated Series (2004) • Scorpion King (2002) • The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian (TBA)
Attractions: Revenge of the Mummy (Florida) • Revenge of the Mummy (Hollywood)
cs:Mumie (1999)

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