The Mummy (1999)

I spend a lot of time on Tumblr, in part because I adore the lovely weird chaotic energy of the site and in part because it seems as obsessed with the 1999 version of The Mummy as I am. I mean, what even is this movie?

It is a delight*, is the answer. Let’s talk about why.

*caveats to follow.

The Mummy features a lot of things we still don’t get enough of in action movies: kickass ladies (who are unapologetically also giant geeks), handsome men (who are extremely impressed by geeky kickass ladies), a sense of humour and, of course, monsters. Perhaps most importantly, The Mummy is a romantic action comedy that primarily focuses on the female POV. Even though Evie spends part of the film being carted around by an all-powerful living-dead guy, she’s never a victim.

Right, so before we go any further, I’m going to have to admit that the 1932 Mummy was my favourite film when I was between about 7 and 10. Why? I don’t know; kids are so weird. (LOL I do know; it is creepy and scary without being too scary and also it features a lot of running about in a museum, and a reanimated mummy; what’s not to love.)

So I went into the 1999 version (on opening night, of course) with very low expectations. It looked pretty fun, but beyond that, what was I hoping for? A couple of good hours, maybe? This was 1999, fer crissakes; action movies in 1999 were all about blowing shit up, and what few roles women played were generally screamy and naked.

But hey, the ‘99 Mummy is reasonably true to the spirit of the original, while also updated with a modern sensibility that thrilled my 19-year-old self (and continues to thrill): see above re humour, kickass ladies, handsome men. “I love the whole sand-wall trick; beautiful” Beni says late in the film, in response to the titular mummy turning into, like, an entire sandstorm in order to take down one - one! - ancient and overloaded biplane. A stiff breeze could have done the trick, Imhotep. What the heck is that. I love it.

And you know what? The film has more or less withstood the test of time. I’m going to infuriate any Tumblr Mummy fans who stumble into this review by eventually pointing out that it is not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination (and I’m not talking about the CG), but despite its problems The Mummy remains a movie that I can reliably turn to for a pick-me-up. And thanks to Tumblr, I know I’m not the only person who feels that way about it.

I will spare you from a long write-up because life is short and if you subscribe to this newsletter you are very likely pretty familiar with this movie. Here instead are some takeaways:

• The cast is inhumanly beautiful. Like, even for Hollywood, this film is ridiculously overpopulated with beautiful, charismatic actors.

• The Mummy is funny. Sometimes the humour is mean-spirited or misdirected (as we’ll discuss below) but the film doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the characters are generally all in on it. “This situation is so weird! Let’s diffuse it with humour!” is a pretty common trope in action movies, but it’s not always done well or right. The Mummy generally does it well and right. Generally.

• Look, films featuring significant female leads, from action movies to romcoms to period films, love to undercut their women - no matter how superficially together and/or successful - by making them disasters. You know: cursed with bad luck and bad timing, clumsy, verbally incontinent, tongue-tied in stressful situations, borderline alcoholic. The Mummy does not do this. I cannot stress this enough: Evie is awesome. She is smart, competent and brave, and also a big nerd, without being a disaster. Just as importantly, she is valued and respected by the other characters. Despite being the film’s Smurfette, she’s exceptional, and there simply aren’t enough female characters like her in action films. Or any films.

• The Mummy objectifies everyone. This too is pretty unusual, especially for an action film: generally, we’re used to seeing action films privilege the male gaze, and there’s definitely plenty of that in The Mummy. The camera loooovveeess Rachel Weisz. But the camera also glories in the (many!) male bodies and the male beauty on display, from Imhotep’s costume (erm, so to speak; for what percentage of his screentime he doesn’t spend as a desiccated CG corpse, Arnold Vosloo is basically naked) to Brendan Fraser’s apple-pie beauty to Oded Fehr’s perfect cheekbones. (Director Stephen Somer initially intended for Ardeth Bey’s face to be entirely tattooed, but decided Fehr was too handsome to cover up.)

Unfortunately, this film also overindexes in lazy, racist stereotypes. Beni and Imhotep are both North African characters, and both are played by white actors. Rachel Weisz’ Evie is half-Egyptian (which Rachel Weisz is not). Numerous POC extras die horribly, often for laughs. The film’s worst offender is Omid Djalili’s Warden Gad Hassan, who is played for laughs in the most racist fashion imaginable and then who dies horribly (also for laughs).

As much we might enjoy a film, it’s still incumbent upon us to consider it critically and be honest about its flaws. The casual racism in The Mummy is its worst sin, and the thing that ages it the most. Honestly, I’m surprised I haven’t seen more discourse about it.

It is also surprising and irritating that there aren’t more romantic action comedies that focus on the female lead, but the fact is, there aren’t: Romancing the Stone is one of the very best, but even the recent resurgence of interest in the subgenre hasn’t yet delivered a classic. There’s an argument to be made that the first Pirates of the Caribbean film qualifies as an action film with a strong romantic element that focuses on the female character’s POV, but those elements are arguably not what makes the film special; whether they were intended to be the movie’s focus or not, PotC is remembered - and notable - for Johnny Depp’s career-altering turn as Jack Sparrow, not Orlando Bloom’s Will and Kiera Knightly’s Elizabeth mooning about each other while prancing around with swords.

More recent contenders include Jungle Cruise and The Lost City. I strongly considered writing up Jungle Cruise for this newsletter, but that’d mean rewatching it, and… I don’t want to. It isn’t very good, and there’s not much to say about it. The Lost City is a bit more fun than Jungle Cruise, at least; the leads have much more chemistry than Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson do in Jungle Cruise, but it’s still kind of arid. And surprisingly sexless. And the sexy bits are part of the appeal!

Whereas The Mummy, like Romancing the Stone - and possibly the ur-romantic action film, Raiders of the Lost Ark *- is undeniably horny.

(This is where I’d link to the essay “everyone was beautiful but no one was horny” about how there’s basically no sex in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but my broadband provider has decided that the url - bloodknife.com - is “problematic” because of possible violence/gore, and I’m having trouble changing the settings. I’m afraid you’re going to have to hunt that one down yourself.)

The Mummy is an adventure movie with a strong romantic subplot told (mostly) from the POV of the female lead - a lead who gets to be competent, funny, sexy and smart without also being undercut by her own uselessness. Plenty of action movies have romantic subplots, but they tend to be told from the male POV and involve imperilled women. If it’s a gritty action movie, there’s every chance the female lead will get fridged. The Mummy, for all its sins, does none of that. And I suspect a great deal of its enduring appeal boils down to the simple fact that it’s a fun action movie that kicks ass, tells jokes, and doesn’t do its lead female character dirty. Twenty-three years on, there are still very, very few action movies that can say the same.

*No, Raiders does not privilege the female character’s POV, but it does at least give Karen Allen a well-written and interesting character to play against Harrison Ford’s nuclear charisma, which neither of the two subsequent Indiana Jones films do. I’m not even going to pretend that Crystal Skull is worth talking about in the same breath as the original trilogy.

Monsters: one extremely dramatic, all-powerful mummy. A lot of other mummies. Something like six of the ten plagues of Egypt.

Mullets: No mullets per se, but Brendan Fraser’s mushroom-flop haircut and Rachel Weisz’s plucked eyebrows certainly date the film.

Representation: Evie is one of only two women in the film, the other being virtually naked for most of her brief time on screen (and then a partially reanimated corpse for the rest of it). Most of the actors of colour die horribly. Several are played entirely for laughs, and two (or three) main characters - who, again, are from North Africa - are played by white actors. So, uh, that’s an issue.

Remake-watch: This movie did well enough that they made one mediocre sequel, one terrible sequel, and then remade it (again!) to try to launch an MCU-style extended monster universe with Tom Cruise. I think I’ve even seen the Tom Cruise Mummy, but I genuinely don’t remember anything about it.

Thanks for sticking with Monsters & Mullets, despite its (extremely) irregular publishing schedule. You can find me on Twitter @thefingersofgod, but I don’t spend a lot of time there these days because, you know. Twitter.