The Mummy (1999 film)
The Mummy is a film written and directed in
1999 by
Stephen Sommers and starring
Brendan Fraser and
Rachel Weisz, with
Arnold Vosloo as the reanimated
mummy of the title. The movie features dialogues in ancient
Egyptian language with the assistance of a professional
Egyptologist.
It is a loose remake of
The Mummy (
1932), which starred
Boris Karloff as the mummy.
The Mummy does not take place at the famed
Giza pyramids where several
Old Kingdom Egyptian kings (Egyptian monarchs were not yet called Pharaohs) were buried. Instead, the setting is the fictitious
Hamunaptra—the "City of the Dead."
In 2001 A sequel was made titled
The Mummy Returns.
Tagline: The sands will rise. The heavens will part. The power will be unleashed.The film begins in 1290 BC. In this version, the mummy is a traitorous High Priest named
Imhotep (Vosloo) who had an affair with
pharaoh Seti's mistress,
Anck-su-namun (named after the historical queen
Ankhesenamun). After the pharaoh discovers the affair, he is killed by Imhotep. Anck-su-namun then kills herself, intending for Imhotep to later resurrect her. (This event is played again in the sequel.) Imhotep then breaks into her crypt and steals her body; he and his priests flee into the desert where they commence the resurrection ceremony. However, they are quickly caught by the Pharaoh's guards; Imhotep's priests are mummified alive, and Imhotep himself is forced to endure the curse of Hum Dai - Imhotep's tongue is cut out and he is mummified (like his priests, alive) before being buried with a swarm of flesh-eating
scarabs. The horror of the ritual is that it grants immortality but not invulnerability, so that, unike his priests, he is unable to die and must endure the agony of his wounds for all time. Imhotep is buried under high security, sealed away in a locked sarcophagus, and kept under strict surveillance. If he were ever to be released, the powers that made him immortal would allow him to unleash a wave of destruction and death.
Thousands of years later, in 1926, librarian and aspiring archaeologist Evelyn Carnahan (Weisz) and her bumbling brother Jonathan contact a prisoner, Richard "Rick" O'Connell (Fraser), an American who was serving in the
French Foreign Legion when he was captured, who happens to know the location of
Hamunaptra, the "City of the Dead" and the treasure of past pharaohs that it contains. The expedition quickly becomes a race against another group. This second group is composed of Americans, who are being led by Beni Gabor, an old army colleague of O'Connell's who also knows how to find Hamunaptra.
Both groups trying to reach Hamunaptra are attacked by members of a
secret society, lead by Ardeth Bey (
Oded Fehr), devoted to making sure the creature never awakens. However, both groups make it to the city, where everyone excavates old artifacts in search for the
Book of the Dead. While exploring the city, they come across several traps, such as parastic beetles that are hidden in hollow golden beetles, and pressurized salt acid. Evelyn "borrows" the book and reads a page of the Egyptian language. Imhotep is accidentally released, and begins killing the Americans due to the fact that they opened the box which played a part in the curse by holding the sacred
canopic jars. Beni survives a meeting with Imhotep by pledging allegiance to him and helps Imhotep later track down the Americans. Imhotep eventually brings the
Ten Plagues of Moses, and captures Evelyn, intending to use her to resurrect his long-dead lover. Rick and Jonathan rescue Evelyn and thwart Imhotep in his attempt to resurrect Anck-su-namun. Evelyn reads from the golden book of Amun-Ra which takes the mummy's immortality after which Rick kills his mortal body.
As they are leaving Hamunaptra, Beni falls behind to plunder the treasures of the lost city, and is trapped with a swarm of flesh-eating scarabs. The heroes ride off into the sunset on
camels, as yet unaware that their saddlebags are packed with treasures Beni looted earlier.
Book of Amon-Ra
The book of Amon-Ra, also called The Book of the Living, was a fictional book, seen in both
The Mummy, and
The Mummy Returns. It is made completely of gold, and it 'takes life away'- in the film, it is used to make Imhotep mortal, apparently by sending his soul to the underworld. It was found in the base of the statue of Horus. During the colapse of Hamunaptra, it was dropped and left behind. It bears similarities to the non-fictional
Book of the Dead.
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Rick O'Connell, Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan |
See also: Characters related to The Mummy (1999 film)In 1992, producer James Jacks decided to update the original
Mummy film for the 1990s.
Universal Studios gave him the go-ahead but only if he kept the budget around $10 million. So, he brought horror filmmaker/writer
Clive Barker on-board to direct. Barker's vision was quite violent and gory with the story revolving around a man who runs a contemporary museum and turns out to be a cultist trying to reanimate mummies. After several meetings, Barker and Universal lost interest and parted company. Filmmaker
George A. Romero was brought in but his vision was a zombie-style horror movie a la
Night of the Living Dead and considered too scary by Jacks and the studio who wanted a more accessible picture.
Joe Dante was the next choice and he increased the budget size but envisioned someone like
Daniel Day-Lewis as a brooding Mummy. This version (co-written by
John Sayles) came close to being made with some elements, like the flesh-eating scarabs, making it to the final product. However, at that point, the studio wanted a film with a budget of $15 million and nixed Dante's version.
Then, writer/director Stephen Sommers called Jacks in 1997 with his vision of
Raiders of the Lost Ark-style action/adventure film. He had wanted to make a
Mummy film since 1993 but other writers or directors were always attached. Finally, he had gotten his window of opportunity and pitched his idea to the studio with an 18-page treatment. Universal liked this idea so much that they green-lit the movie and increased the budget from $15 million to $80 million.
* "Ardeth Bey", the name of Oded Fehr's character, is a reference to "Ardath Bey", the name used by the reanimated mummy in the 1932 original. Ardath Bey is an
anagram of "Death by Ra."
* In the original release of The Mummy in England, around 5-10 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 actually hanging by his neck. This was then added back into the Ultimate Edition.
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Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connell. |
The Mummy Returns, was released in
2001.
The Scorpion King, a spin-off featuring a character from
The Mummy Returns, was released in
2002. Though not officially announced, it is believed that a third
Mummy movie is currently planned, as Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and Stephen Sommers have all hinted at it. [
1] [
2]
There is also a spin-off television series,
The Mummy: The Animated Series (2001), broadcast on
The WB network in the United States and BBC1 and the CBBC channel in Britain.
English Computer games developers
Rebellion created a spin-off game for
Universal Studios Interactive division for the
PC,
PlayStation and
Dreamcast. Various platform versions were released throughout
1999 and
2000.
The movie property was also spun-off into successful, multi-million dollar attractions at Universal Studios Orlando and Universal Studios Hollywood.
The Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride attractions at both parks are high speed rollercoasters with dark ride elements, however both are very distinct in execution due to the spacial limitations. The Hollywood ride was constructed in the former E.T. Adventure building, while the Florida version had a much larger stage with the space formerly used by the KONGfrontation attraction, in which guests encountered King Kong.
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Official site*
Imhotep's Chamber*
Hamunaptra, City of The Dead*
Keith Short - Film Sculptor Images of set pieces created for this film
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The Mummy & The Mummy Returns Fanlisting
