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Spooky tale

Suparn Verma

A genre that continues to fascinate filmmakers in Hollywood is horror films.

There have been several attempts at re-making old classics into blockbusters. Kenneth Branagh tried to make an intellectual Frankenstein with Robert De Niro but failed, Jan De Bont tried his hand at The Haunting but couldn’t manage to evoke the chills of the black-and-white classic, while Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula looked more like an erotic movie than a scary one.

And now director Stephen Sommers tries a new approach with the 1932 classic, The Mummy.

He knows that today's audiences are used to special sound and visual effects, so he takes a different route. He takes the Indiana Jones format and incorporates massive special effects -- some to scare, the rest to thrill. Hidden treasures, booby-traps galore, caves, underground passages, secret doors, chants, a spooky mummy, fighting natives -- this could well have been Indiana Jones IV!

The Mummy, in fact, takes a cue from several other modern horror tales as well. The 'book of the dead,' a tool created by director Sam Raimi in The Evil Dead is used in The Mummy. When read, this book has the power to bring the dead to life. It's also able to conjure the army of darkness (as in Evil Dead III) and there's this malicious sidekick to the hero who seems to have lost his way from the sets of Alladin.

The story goes something like this. In 1925, a group of wannabe tomb raiders set off from Cairo for the ruins of Hamunaptra, the fabled 'city of the dead,' "where the earliest pharaohs were said to have hidden the wealth of Egypt."

Led by Evelyn Carnarvon (Rachel Weisz) -- a librarian at the Museum of Antiquities, who dreams of being the next Howard Carter -- leads her dim-witted brother Jonathan (John Hannah) and an American soldier, Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser), to the tomb amidst the Sahara desert.

With a team of hangers-on and a rival group of Americans (all ready to die gruesome deaths) on their heels, they find the fabled city where they accidentally awaken Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), the high priest of Osiris.

Imhotep was made into a mummy 3000 years earlier for having an illegitimate affair with the pharaoh's mistress (one look at Patricia Velasquez and her dress, and you won’t blame him). So, he was, left 'undead' for eternity.

Imhotep has only one mission in life: to bring alive his dead lover who killed herself before the pharaoh’s men got to her. If Imhotep’s tomb is opened, he will emerge and control the entire desert and rule the world…or something like that.

Enter members of an ancient secret society, descendants of the pharaoh's bodyguards who are sworn to protect Imhotep's mummy. They are supposed to prevent it from coming alive again, lest Imhotep (which literally means 'bringer of death') becomes an "unholy flesh eater." And of course, there's the curse that anyone who opens the tomb will die a horrible death.

Brendon Fraser tries to take on the mantle of a tough, yet comic guy in this film. Unlike his previous films which include George Of The Jungle or the acclaimed Gods And Monsters, Fraser is in new territory here, but he carries the role with aplomb.

Rachel Weisz's character reminds you of Heather (Heather Donahue) from the Blair Witch Project. She leads this expedition with a stubbornness bordering on irritation, unleashes the baddie and has a lot of people killed in the bargain. She is the only one who doesn’t quite fit in, with her mannerisms resembling Rose of Titanic. An American in the Sahara is bad enough, did there have to be a Jane Austen-type heroine as well?

Arnold Vosloo has to play the part of the villain simply because ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) conjures some stunning effects on him. Among the highlights is a desert storm and the climax where the undead come out and fight with Fraser.

The film is fast-paced and well-shot, and is fun to watch with a bag of popcorn. But if you wish to see a scare fest, then avoid this film.