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Twice during the film, co-star characters deliver
perfectly crowd pleasing lines - on a par with Indiana Jones shooting the
swordsman in Raiders. The audience burst into applause and gales of laughter.
The
web site is well done, and has
loads of juicy information on the characters and actors.
Technical Considerations: The Mummy has flaws,
and lacks the finely polished maturity (and resources) of its big brothers from
Lucas and Spielberg, but is also does not suffer from over production either.
Their next one will be even better. There is no reason to not see it, unless
you just don't like this sort of thing. If you do like this, it will not
disappoint.
The flaws are very technical, minor points
only. At 2+ hours, it felt like stuff was missing that had been scripted. There
were some disjointed moments in the first half hour that felt awkward. I can
imagine that the fertile imagination of the writer/director Sommers had more to
offer, but time is money, and it is not possible to do everything. Even Lucas
is cutting treasured moments from SW1, to keep the time down. I am sure that
there will be a longer cut in a few years on DVD, but for theaters it has to be
lean.
In particular, the story starts with O'Connell, but
then shifts over to the girl's point of view for awhile. This is unsettling.
Who's story is it? I wanted Rick to lead the action. Instead, after seeing him
escape the marauders at the beginning, we are left to rediscover him at the
behest of the girl. I'd rather we stayed with O'Connell the way we stayed with
Indiana in Raiders. In all fairness, we did go to Marion's bar, but I never
thought Raiders was her film.
It seemed that the action slowed from time to time -
especially when we are with the girl and her brother alone. By the end, all of
these considerations have vanished, and everyone pulls their own weight.
Once on site, the action takes several days, and it is
not clear why...one day and night would have sufficed, especially with the
competitiveness of the hunters.
At the beginning, we are introduced to the ineptness of
the girl and her goof-off brother when she plays dominoes with ancient texts.
Sure it is funny, but Rick is not on the scene, and it would have been tastier
if she had screwed up in front of him. (Never mind the fact that this was done
in another film.)
And a few little other touches could have been made.
The scared-of-sacred-cat theme is introduced and used, but when Imhotep's fear is
nullified, there is a perfect moment to show him holding a cat. And some of the
facial expressions of the mummy were too expressive for my taste.
But...
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| The P Meter |
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All movies can be
evaluated, fairly or not, by the attention span and spell-boundedness of the
audience. And it is true, at least in this case, that there is not
always time to go to the bathroom...
The bench-mark for
this scale is Titanic (five stars) at 11. Only 5 people left the theater during
the 3 hour 10 minute sinking in all that suggestive, relieving, cool water. In
the Citiplace 11 in Baton Rouge, the restrooms are directly under the
stadium seating, i.e. close at hand, and still people did not want to chance
missing anything.
On the other hand, The Mod Squad is a zero, because you can
leave the movie for the bathroom or wherever, and not go back, and not care
that you do not know how it is going to end.
Unfortunately, this is not a golden rule for determining
quality in a film. Some films are slow paced, and allow for breathers with
minimal catch-up effort. Others require attention to stay with it, just so you
know what is going on - not a definite indication of enjoyment.. But in
general, if a lot of people sit in their seats for two hours while munching
salty popcorn and slurping 64 ounce colas you might have a winner on your
hands.
| TITANIC |
11 |
| STAR WARS (any one) |
10 |
| ALIENS |
10 |
| MISSION IMPOSSIBLE |
9 |
| ENTRAPMENT |
8 |
| SPECIES I |
7 |
GODS AND MONSTERS
(But you see why this scale cannot be a good rule of
thumb, so to speak?? This is a five star winner! But it is slow paced, and you
can miss stuff and still get the gut punch at the end. You also know you'll see
it again.;..) |
6 |
| WHAT DREAMS MAY COME (You can miss a lot, or none, and
still not quite get what is going on, but it is a lovely film, four
stars. |
5 |
| VIRUS |
3 |
| PUSHING TIN |
1 |
| MOD SQUAD, Species II |
0 |
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When it comes down to it, if the movie is low on the
scale, the P scale is no indication of merit, and you have to dig a little
deeper for a serviceable evaluation. If it scores high, however, at least you
know it commands your attention, and in the case of Titanic, downright
awe...
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