The mummy returns - 2001

 The story is a bit all over the place, but it IS entertaining.

It’s Thebes 3067 BC 5000 years ago the Scorpion king, a warrior, had an army to conquer the known world. A seven-year long war, then the scorpion king was defeated. Driven to the desert, his remaining army died, he was the last one alive, the strongest. Near death, “the scorpion king made a pact with the Dark Lord Anubis that if Anubis would spare his life and let him conquer his enemies, he would give him his soul”. Anubis accepted.

With Anubis’ army, he conquered Thebes, then the scorpion king had to serve him for all time. Now it’s 1933 and we see Rick again, with his son Alex.

Evy has been having dreams and seems to know her way around the latest tomb she found (while they let their son wander by himself).

She has visions while she’s there. She finds the bracelet of Anubis and they take it. Three armed men arrive and Alex fights them with a sling, but then his parents cause the place to be flooded by the Nile so the three escape. The child is well only because of sheer luck. Ditto for the parents. Again.

Hamunaptra. The book of the dead and the book of the living are in the hands of Hafez, Anck-su-namun and Lock-nah who are looking for something and have lots of people digging around.

Suddenly thousands of scarabs come out of the sand killing people until they’re stopped with fire.

They find Imhotep. Ardeth is there spying.

Rick and his family are back in London and their home is attacked to get the bracelet. Left alone again, Alex wears it with his parents not noticing.

The bad guys enter unnoticed, but so does Ardeth Bay to the rescue… alone…

Evy is a great fighter but has no idea where she learned it. Still, the bad guys abduct Evy and (they think) get the bracelet.

As always, the heroes suffer nothing, break windows, get shot at, lots of other things with not a scratch…

Alex shows dad and Ardeth that he has the bracelet and recognises in Hafez the curator of the British museum. 

Whoever can defeat the scorpion king can take control of Anubis’ army. Rick: “so that’s why they dug up Imhotep, ‘cause he’s the only guy tough enough to take out the scorpion king”

Rick has “the sacred mark”, a tattoo on his wrist Ardeth notices only now. It means he’s a protector, a warrior, a medjai. At the British museum, Hafez and many men keep chanting a lot, and the mummy of Imhotep awakens.

“I am Anck-su-namun reincarnated”, the girl says, and Imhotep: “only in body, but soon I shall bring your soul back from the underworld and our love shall once again be whole”.

Only now those guys open the chest to see there is no bracelet.

Right when they’re about to kill Evy (not using her to get Anck’s soul back this time, she already has her body, and identical to her old one…) Rick arrives.

Alex is eight years old.

Jonathan broke the car key so he steals a double-decker bus. They all go in to escape Imhotep’s four warrior mummies. They fight and win.

Once again Rick and Evy are all over each other leaving Alex to be kidnapped by those guys…. and Rick RUNS after their car… those guys won’t harm Alex, Ardeth says, because he wears the bracelet, and once they reach Karnak it will show them the rest of the way to the oasis.

So they need to get there first or won’t know which way to go. 

The three armed men of the beginning are given to Imhotep as a snack to make him handsome again.

Our gang flies while the others take the train (it’s quite a cute scene, at night on the dirigible).

Alex pulls the emergency break and escapes. They ARE at Karnak anyway, but only he sees the message with the rest of the way to go. Ardeth keeps trying to convince Rick to accept he’s a Medjai. Imhotep shows Anck-su-namun images to ‘remind her of her soul’?

Evy sees them too, far away as she is, because she was there in Egypt with Anck. Nefertiti, she was, the daughter of the pharaoh - Anck was the future wife, he said… from what they said in the first movie, I thought she was more of a property, a plaything, nothing like a future queen.

Nefertiti saw Imhotep and Anck together, and she also saw when they killed the pharaoh.

Anck-su-namun is totally back now. Evy now explains to Rick about her previous life and how now it all makes perfect sense… because she was the bracelet protector.

To sum it up: Ardeth: “clearly you are destined to protect this woman” - Rick: “She’s a reincarnated princess, and I’m a warrior for God” - Ardeth: “and your son leads the way to Ahm Shere. Three sides of the pyramid. This was all predestined thousands of years ago”.

Of course.

Alex used water on the sand to make them a castle to show his parents where they are going… well, maybe he didn’t know the name of the place the bracelet showed him or he’d have written the name instead of building a real architecturally structured sand castle… and they’d already said he’s really smart (although they’re the parents, the one he inherited his traits from, so they’re not gonna say anything different).

Here, he left a tie for them, next his jacket covers another sand castle: Abu Simbel. Then he is stopped by Lock-nah and Imhotep tries to stop them with water. Lots of it.

Instead he drives them right to the oasis. Look at that.

Small mummy-creatures take out most of the bad guys, Rick takes his son away, Evy and Jonathan play snipers from afar, Ardeth fights in the middle of it. The family’s all together now but it’s not over because Imhotep told Alex that he’ll die if he isn’t inside the pyramid before morning.

Oncce inside, the bracelet opens and he can take it off.

Anck arrives and stabs Evy who apparently dies… but Alex thinks of The Book. Anubis takes Imhotep superpowers before the fight.

Hafez wears the bracelet and wakes the scorpion king and the army of Anubis.

Anck doesn’t want Imhotep to fight alone for fear of losing him again. Rick is there and fights Imhotep first. 

Outside, it is Ardeth’s big army against the supernatural forces of Anubis’ army.

Jonathan plays boxing with Anck so Alex can steal the book she had with her. Alex reads from the book to give Evy life again… real life, not mummy-life. 

The book of the dead. It’s basically the same scene, in movie 1 Jonathan read and didn’t know the last symbol, here it’s Alex.

Evy wakes and fights Anck.

As a mortal without powers, Imhotep couldn’t defeat Rick, doesn’t even try with the Scorpion king, and sends him after Rick.

Very Clear Pictures On The Wall explain to Rick that yes, it’s his destiny and he needs the spear of Osiris that Jonathan loves so much, to kill the scorpion king.

Jonathan throws it but Imhotep takes it, then Rick takes it and with it he kills the scorpion king and sends the army back to the underworld. 

Evy and Anck watch as Rick and Imhotep are almost lost to the underworld too; Rick tells Evy to get out but she runs to save him, of course.

Imhotep sees that and calls for Anck-su-namun to help him but she runs away so he lets himself die. She dies shortly after.

The oasis disappears, they are trapped but the dirigible arrives to save them. They fly back and all is well. The end.

Rick - Brendan Fraser

Evy - Rachel Weisz

Jonathan - John Hannah

Imhotep - Arnold Vosloo

Scorpion king - The Rock

Ardeth Bay - Oded Fehr

Anck-su-namun - Patricia Velasquez

Alex - Freddie Boath

Lock-nah - Adewale  Akinnuoye-Agbaje

ITA la mummia - il ritorno