On this week’s edition of Direct to DVD Dissection…
*deep breath*
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Story
A group of archaeologists uncover a long lost pyramid in the middle of the Egyptian desert. Believing the pyramid to be full of ancient treasures, the group decides to explore. Little do they know that their actions are about to awaken an ancient evil.
The Cast
Stuart Rigby as Professor Tralane, the leader of this dig and very obviously evil. It should be mentioned here, because no one in the movie notices it.
Lauren Bronleewe as Maggie, the professor’s daughter, or maybe not, according to some stupid dialog.
Bailey Gaddis as Ronnie, the first lamb to the proverbial slaughter in this film.
Sarah Schreiber as Grant, the second lamb to the proverbial slaughter in this film.
The Dissection
So, the “first” THE MUMMY film back in 1932 was a bit of a supernatural drama with a touch of horror elements, and had sequels that fed more into a movie monster mold. The 1999 remake that featured Brendon Fraiser was more a mix of action, comedy, and horror. With the third “installment” of the film here, and it’s in quotes because this movie is not at all related to the Universal series of films, this one is more about straight horror.
And it is honestly one of the worsts films to ever be released on DVD.
Maggie(Bronleewe), by way of a still from a old Tex Murphy adventure game.
To put it simple, this is a movie that has it obvious that no one in it really cared. No one cared enough to act well in it. No one cared enough to make the film look good. No one cared enough to make the music anything other than insipid. And no one cared enough to make the film with anything that resembled anything close to passion and a desire to make a good product. This is a movie that, for the most part, was not worth the process of putting the damn thing on a DVD, and sending it to a Redbox kiosk.
The characters, for one, have nothing to them. They don’t even have one note characteristics. They’re bodies that were filmed moving around on a set, or a green screen, and that’s it. A flag should be set off right from the beginning, with most of the main characters introduced as being generic, and annoying, teen characters. They stand around, whine out line after line of crappy dialog, and die very uninteresting deaths, and the audience is no better or worse off in them doing that. No characters seems to have any emotions, and even the death scenes illicit no reaction from the characters other than ALIEN FROM LA style Dull Surprise.
“Dude….” (This is a death scene, by the way.)
The movie is mercifully short, clocking in at less than 80 minutes without credits, and the movie spends a good 60 minutes of the film setting up for the monster. And even after that, the film can’t keep that small window of action consistent, because it’s not all about the titular mummy, at least not the monster Mummy. The first two parts of the movie are just about getting the characters into the tomb of the mummy, and documenting the whole bickering and infighting they have because they’re trapped, along with another plot with the head explorer and his secrets, which feed into the third act.
Also, this movie really puts the “low” in “low budget.” A lot of photoshop effects and cheap looking areas. Most notably, there’s a few scenes shot on green screen. What screens needed the use of a green screen? Such scenes as two characters walking down a hall and talking, as well as looking at the sunset. This movie was made for less than a million dollars, and it honestly looks like a lower budget film from that.
It’s honestly surprising how the movie is hell bent on making the connection between the Universal film series, the 1999 film trilogy in particular, and this film. The name of the titular mummy is a high priest with a similar name to Imhotep. The logo for the film copies the 1999 one, even down to the oversized M in the middle and the light.The production company logo even rips off the logo for Universal in this film. This goes even beyond the level of The Asylum or European remakes on the level of ripping off a property with a “new iteration”.
As for extras, as if that could have saved this disaster, the only ones are a selection of deleted scenes (and you can imagine the quality of the scenes that were rejected from this) and the film’s trailer.
The Verdict
NO.
/span