The mummy - 1999

 It starts with a bit of background showing us Imhotep, the Pharaoh’s high priest, having an affair, or a big love story, with Anck-su-namun, the mistress of the Pharaoh, we might say, she was his property is what she was. They kill the pharaoh for their love. Soldiers arrive, she tells him to go and Imhotep is taken away by his priests, and he vows to resurrect her. They stole her body from the crypt to the city of the dead. He almost resurrected her but the soldiers got him and stopped him. The priests are mummified alive. Imhotep got his tongue cut, was covered like a mummy and sealed inside a sarcophagus full of bugs, scarabs, undead for eternity.

If unearthed, there would be a plague on mankind.

3000 years later, it’s 1923 and the Magi, descendants of the Pharaoh bodyguards kept guard. Now they fight Rick and his men, his garrison, many die but Rick is left alive.

Three years later, so 1926

Evelyn works at the library at the Museum of Antiquities and almost destroys it. She can read and write ancient Egyptian, decipher hieroglyphics and hieratic. 

Her older brother Jonathan gives her something he found in Thebe and inside there’s a sort of map to the city of the dead, Hamunaptra, where all the tombs of the rich are. The librarian burns half of the map. 

Actually Jonathan stole it from… Rick, and Rick tells them he was there, but he’s about to be hanged… Evie makes a deal and he’s released and they go all together. Jonathan looks for treasure, Evy looks for a book…

The magi assault the ship they’re on, the little box is “the key”. Our team and a group of Americans arrive at the city. “They’re led by a woman. What does a woman know?” they say. Grrr.

They all dig. The guy Gad got a scarab inside him: dead.

Evy and her team found the tomb of “he that shall not be named”.

Evy still won’t believe in curses. The magi attak, then when it’s Ardeth vs Rick, Ardeth calls a stop and they go away… There was never a reason given why Rick was always kept alive…

The Americans find something like a box and inside there’s a curse, they read all about it but don’t care. Inside is “the book of the dead”, and some treasure.

Evy sees the book and at night sneaks where he sleeps and takes it, and she has the key to open it (that little puzzle box), and she reads from it… a very bad idea. Men are eaten by scarabs or other stuff, a mummy thinks Evy is Anck-su-namun. Now Ardeth and his men arrive and he’s all “I told you to leave, now you’ve freed a creature we’ve feared for 3000 years, the bringer of death” …then why didn’t he stop them before?

Rick wants to go away but Evy is all “we have to stop it”. Imhotep comes to their hotel to finish off the poor American guy that had already lost his tongue and eyes before he was saved, He isn’t saved this time. Imhotep has now gained strength. 

The curator of the library is with Ardeth, and informs them that they’re all part of a secret society that has guarded the city of the dead for over 3000 years, “to stop the high priest Imhotep from being reborn into this world”, “and now because of you we have failed”.

They can talk because as soon as he saw a cat, Imhotep fled. They guard the underworld, so “he will fear them until he is fully regenerated”.

Evy apparently has been chosen to help Imhotep bring back Anck-su-namun. Imhotep kills the Egyptologist and gets the book back, he kills another American and is almost back to normal, then goes to kiss Evy, but Rick comes in with a hissing cat and he flees.

Evy thinks that the Golden book might kill him, but they have to find it.

The book of Amun-Ra is the Golden book. The last American is taken by Imhotep when he falls off their car. Now he’s fully regenerated. Evy goes with him to save the others, and then it’s the curator who sacrifices himself to give them time to go on. Back at Hamunaptra, Imhotep wants to perform the ritual, while they try to get to him in time to save her. 

Jonathan finds the statue of Horus and they now have the Golden book. Ardeth goes against all the priests-mummies to give them time, so Rick and Jonathan go on. Rick fights other mummies to free her. They shout at each other a lot (Rick and the mummies, not Rick and Evy)

Jonathan can read ancient Egyptian too and by reading the inscription on the book he commands the armed mummies, then he gets the box-key and Evy and he opens the book and reads from it, so Imhotep’s immortality is taken away… back to the underworld I guess, boh.

So a knife kills him.

Ardeth thanks them when they meet outsidej… he got out alive and that’s good, but gratitude? It was all their fault in the first place… Well, to give them some credit there were the Americans too, so they would have done it anyway, even if Evy was not there.

At the end, Rick and Evy kiss and are all in love.

Cool ending titles.

Rick - Brendan Fraser

Evy - Rachel Weisz

Jonathan - John Hannah

Ardeth Bay - Oded Fehr

Imhotep - Arnold Vosloo

Curator - Erick Avari

ITA la mummia