Alice in Wonderland (2010) – Review

Say what you will about Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, but its massive box office success kicked open the door for Disney to start strip-mining their animated classics for live-action updates like it was a gold rush, and subtlety had already left town. What began as a single “visionary reimagining” quickly became a corporate strategy. And here we are, still digging through the consequences.

Victorian London: a place where grief is quietly swallowed, individuality is politely discouraged, and apparently every young woman’s worst nightmare is being proposed to by a man named Hamish Ascot (Leo Bill). Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska), still reeling from her father’s death and plagued by dreams that feel a little too specific to be random, finds herself cornered at a garden party that doubles as an ambush engagement. Just as her life threatens to calcify into a polite prison, she spots a waistcoat-wearing white rabbit checking his pocket watch like he’s late for a union meeting. Naturally, she follows him down a rabbit hole, because ignoring strange mammals has never been her strong suit. After a series of size-altering snacks that would make a nutritionist faint, she squeezes through a door into a world that looks like a fever dream curated by Hot Topic.

 

“So, this is what LSD is like.”

Welcome to Underland, a place where everyone immediately recognizes Alice except Alice herself, which is either charming or deeply unsettling, depending on your tolerance for destiny narratives. She meets a parade of vaguely familiar oddities: Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas pulling double duty), the jittery White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), a cryptic Caterpillar named Absolem (Alan Rickman), and a general sense that she’s wandered into a prophecy she forgot to RSVP to. Apparently, she’s destined to kill the Jabberwocky and overthrow the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), which feels like a lot to drop on someone who just turned down a marriage proposal ten minutes ago. Before she can process any of this, she’s chased by the Bandersnatch and a squad of Red Knights led by the perpetually smirking Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover). Everyone gets captured except Alice, because the plot still needs her.

 

Beware, Johnny Depp ahead!

Alice’s survival tour continues with a visit to the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the March Hare (Paul Whitehouse), and the Dormouse (Barbara Windsor), whose tea party feels less like nonsense and more like chaos with a production budget. The Hatter fills her in on the Red Queen’s hostile takeover of Underland, because nothing says whimsical fantasy like a regime change. When the Red Knights crash the party, the Hatter sacrifices himself so Alice can escape, proving he’s either noble or just tired of Depp’s accent. She’s then guided by Bayard the Bloodhound (Timothy Spall) to infiltrate the Red Queen’s castle, where Alice adopts the deeply convincing alias of “Um.” Surprisingly, this works. She navigates palace intrigue, dodges unwanted advances from the Knave, and learns the Vorpal Sword is hidden in the Bandersnatch’s den, because of course it is.

 

Fantasy MacGuffin…check!

After a daring retrieval mission and a quick act of kindness involving returning the Bandersnatch’s stolen eye, Alice finally links up with the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), who operates her kingdom like a vegan witch with boundary issues. Meanwhile, Absolem goes full self-help guru and reminds Alice that she’s been here before, back when it was still called Wonderland and childhood trauma hadn’t set in. Armed with self-belief and a sword, Alice faces the Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee) in a climactic battle staged on a chessboard, because symbolism is free. She wins, naturally, decapitating the beast and ending the Red Queen’s reign. Order is restored, villains are exiled, and Alice is handed a vial of magical dragon blood that functions like a one-use exit button. She returns to the real world, rejects Hamish again (good call), and decides to become a trade entrepreneur heading to China, because nothing says personal growth like colonial-era business ventures. A butterfly Absolem lands on her shoulder, just in case you forgot the metaphor.

 

“I’ll be seeing you in the sequel.”

Stray Observations:

• Alice spends half the movie insisting it’s a dream while actively participating in a revolution. Commitment to denial is impressive.
• The entire prophecy hinges on Alice remembering something she forgot, which feels like a cosmic clerical error.
• The Red Queen keeps a court full of people with fake, enlarged heads, and no one questions the long-term neck damage.
• The Knave of Hearts thinks flirting during an execution threat is a winning strategy. Bold, if nothing else.
• The White Queen refuses to harm living creatures but has no issue outsourcing violence. Morality, but make it selective.
• The Hatter’s accent wanders more than Alice does.
• The Jabberwocky is voiced by Christopher Lee, a man whose voice alone deserves its own credit line, and the first thing Alice does is slice off its tongue. Somewhere, a film historian just felt a disturbance in the force.
• Alice defeats a monster she’s never fought before after one pep talk. Years of knight training are apparently overrated.

 

It’s nice when you’re handed a plus twelve plot contrivance.

The film’s origin story is almost more compelling than what ended up on screen. Screenwriter Linda Woolverton, going through a rough stretch of life that included personal loss and upheaval, latched onto a striking image: Alice at a crossroads, spotting the White Rabbit and choosing to follow him despite everything. It’s a genuinely powerful concept, rooted in uncertainty and the pull of destiny. Disney heard “fantasy epic with brand recognition” and greenlit it faster than you can say “merchandising.” Tim Burton was brought in as the obvious choice, because if you’re going to revisit Wonderland, you might as well hand the keys to someone who’s built a career out of making the strange feel oddly sincere.

 

“You can find us at your local Disney Store.”

Burton’s direction is exactly what you’d expect, for better and worse. Visually, it’s a feast of twisted whimsy, gothic flourishes, and digitally enhanced oddities that feel like they escaped from one of his sketchbooks. The world of Underland has texture and personality, even if it sometimes looks like it’s drowning in CGI polish. His style gives the film a distinct identity, but it also leans heavily into familiar territory. You’ve seen this brand of off-kilter before, just with different hats and paler faces. There’s imagination here, no question, but it occasionally feels like Burton is remixing himself rather than discovering something new.

 

Could Tim Burton be developing a big head, as well?

The cast is a mixed bag, which is putting it kindly. Mia Wasikowska makes for a perfectly serviceable Alice, grounding the film with a performance that doesn’t collapse under the weight of green screens and prophecy talk. Helena Bonham Carter goes all in as the Red Queen, delivering a delightfully unhinged performance that knows exactly how ridiculous it is. Anne Hathaway’s White Queen, on the other hand, floats through the film with an ethereal detachment that reads less as mystical and more as mildly sedated. Then there’s Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. At this point in his career, Depp seems convinced that every role benefits from a splash of Jack Sparrow, and here it turns into a distracting cocktail of accents and mannerisms. There’s a fine line between quirky and exhausting, and he spends most of the film tap-dancing over it.

 

The level of cringe is off the charts. 

As an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s work, the film takes a very loose approach, which is a polite way of saying it turns nonsense into a conventional hero’s journey. Carroll’s stories thrived on absurdity, wordplay, and a kind of narrative anarchy that refused to be pinned down. This version trades that in for prophecy, destiny, and a climactic sword fight. It’s not inherently a bad choice, but it does strip away much of what made the original material unique. Compared to Disney’s animated classic, which embraced the chaos and leaned into the surreal, Burton’s film feels oddly structured, like Wonderland has been forced to attend a screenwriting seminar and come out with a three-act arc.

 

This version of Wonderland has a lot more ennui.

In conclusion, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a film caught between imagination and obligation. It wants to honour the spirit of Carroll’s work while also delivering a crowd-pleasing fantasy adventure, and the result is something that never fully commits to either. There are moments of visual brilliance and performances that understand the assignment, but they’re weighed down by a narrative that feels more dutiful than inspired. It’s not a disaster by any stretch, but it’s also not the definitive Wonderland it aims to be. What it undeniably is, though, is a turning point for Disney, proving that audiences would show up in droves for reimagined classics, even if the magic feels a little processed.

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) – Review

2016’s Alice Through the Looking Glass arrived with all the confidence of a film that assumes you’ll be dazzled into submission, and all the substance of a screensaver. What should have been a whimsical return to Wonderland instead feels like a contractual obligation stretched to feature length. Even worse, it somehow takes a world built on imagination and renders it aggressively dull.

For three years, Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska) has been off living a far more interesting movie, captaining a ship across the China Sea and pulling off manoeuvres that would make seasoned naval officers question their life choices. In her opening scene, she threads a full-rigged vessel through jagged rocks while being chased by pirates, because apparently physics and basic maritime hierarchy took the day off. Her crew, a group of men who in any historical context would mutiny before lunch, instead follow her with unwavering loyalty. Tragically, this is not a dream sequence, which raises uncomfortable questions about why the film’s most engaging material exists purely to be abandoned.

 

“Has anyone seen Jack Sparrow?”

Returning to London, Alice discovers that her ex-fiancé, Hamish Ascot (Leo Bill), has taken control of his late father’s company and now wants her ship in exchange for not rendering her and her mother (Lindsay Duncan) homeless. This subplot lands with all the urgency of paperwork. It exists purely to shove Alice back toward Wonderland, which she enters by following a butterfly (Alan Rickman) through a mirror, because wanting to go there simply isn’t motivation enough. Once back, she finds her old companions hosting what can only be described as a collective emotional breakdown, centred on the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who has decided his long-dead family might still be alive.

 

Johnny Depp, more annoying than mad.

Alice attempts to apply logic, which in this universe is treated like a hate crime. When she dares to say something is impossible, the Hatter spirals further, declaring she isn’t “his Alice” and beginning a slow theatrical shutdown. The White Queen (Anne Hathaway), who continues to float through scenes like a sentient porcelain doll, sends Alice to consult Time (Sacha Baron Cohen), an entity who explicitly tells her that altering the past is impossible and will destroy everything. Naturally, Alice responds by stealing the Chronosphere, the device controlling all time, because nothing says “hero” like ignoring the one rule that keeps reality intact.

 

“I should introduce you to Marty McFly.”

What follows is a time-hopping detour through events nobody asked to revisit, including the Red Queen’s (Helena Bonham Carter) origin story, which reveals her oversized head is the result of both a childhood accident and a lifetime of bad emotional processing. Alice becomes convinced she can fix everything by changing one moment from the past, despite repeated warnings that this is a catastrophically bad idea. Meanwhile, Time spends most of the film desperately trying to stop her from breaking existence, which ironically makes him the closest thing the story has to a responsible adult.

 

“I don’t need to be mature, I’m the protagonist.”

The film briefly detours into an asylum subplot when Alice is institutionalized for talking about Wonderland, a sequence that serves no purpose other than to toss in a reference to “female hysteria” and pad the film’s running time. It is introduced, resolved, and immediately forgotten, suggesting even the script lost interest halfway through. Eventually, Alice returns to Wonderland, discovers the Hatter’s family was never dead but merely captured and shrunk into an ant farm, because anything remotely sensible was not invited.

 

At what point are we supposed to care for any of this?

In the climax, paradoxes are triggered, characters begin rusting into oblivion, and all of Wonderland collapses because Alice did exactly what she was told not to do. She narrowly resets time at the last second, saving everyone and facing zero consequences for nearly destroying reality. The Hatter reunites with his family, the White Queen apologizes for a childhood lie that apparently shaped the entire conflict, and Alice returns home to start a shipping company with her mother, because the film suddenly remembers it began as a business drama, while bravely ignoring the facts of this era.

 

“Have you forgotten that this is bloody London in 1875?”

Stray Observations:

• Alice commanding a loyal crew of hardened sailors like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Either she’s the greatest leader in maritime history or everyone onboard lost a bet.
• Alan Rickman’s final film role is as a butterfly leading Alice back into chaos. The man deserved better, and somehow still brings more dignity to this than the script ever manages.
• Alice proudly claims she can believe six impossible things before breakfast, yet the moment the Hatter suggests his family might be alive, she suddenly becomes the world’s leading authority on realism. Consistency clearly did not make the journey through the looking glass.
• “You can’t change the past.” Fair enough. “But you can absolutely shatter the fabric of time and existence.” Solid rules, no notes.
• The time travel detour gives us younger versions of the characters, because nothing says compelling storytelling like turning everyone into Muppet Babies.
• Hollywood’s unstoppable urge to explain everything. Mystery? Gone. Imagination? Also gone. But hey, now we know why the Red Queen has a big head, so that’s…something.
• The asylum subplot appears, does its damage, and vanishes like a bad dream no one wants to discuss.
• The Hatter’s family being alive completely undercuts the emotional stakes the film pretends to build.
• Characters act shocked when paradoxes happen after deliberately creating paradoxes. Did this film even have a screenwriter?
• The White Queen apparently forgets she commands an army and instead opts for the classic strategy of “let’s all just run over there ourselves and see what happens.”

 

“Military aid is for losers.”

The film’s biggest issue is that it mistakes noise for imagination. Lewis Carroll’s work thrives on playful nonsense, but here everything is overexplained, overdesigned, and emotionally hollow. The time travel element reduces Wonderland to a checklist of backstory revelations, none of which deepen the characters in any meaningful way. Instead of embracing chaos, the film tries to impose structure, and in doing so, drains the setting of its identity. It’s like watching a theme park attraction pause every five minutes to explain how the rides were built, completely missing why anyone showed up in the first place.

 

A place defined by absurd logic somehow becomes predictable.

Visually, the film is a downgrade from its predecessor. Where the first movie at least had striking imagery to distract from its narrative issues, this one feels oddly flat and synthetic. The environments blur together into a digital haze, lacking the distinctiveness needed to make Wonderland feel like a place worth revisiting. It resembles a very expensive screen saver that forgot to include anything memorable beyond the fact that it’s constantly in motion. When even the spectacle feels tired, there’s not much left to cling to.

 

How much CGI noise can one put up with?

The cast fares little better. Mia Wasikowska seems stranded, playing a protagonist whose decisions make less sense the longer the film continues. Johnny Depp, who was already pushing the limits of tolerable in the previous film, escalates his performance into full-blown irritation, turning the Hatter into a hyperactive distraction rather than a character. Anne Hathaway leans harder into exaggerated mannerisms, while Helena Bonham Carter does what she can with material that reduces her to a punchline. Sacha Baron Cohen emerges as the unexpected highlight, largely because he appears to understand he’s in a different movie and chooses to play it with a hint of grounded frustration.

 

“I’ll see you on Fleet Street, Mister Todd.”

In conclusion, Alice Through the Looking Glass is a rare kind of failure: a fantasy film that forgets how to be imaginative. It replaces curiosity with exposition, whimsy with noise, and emotional stakes with empty spectacle. What should have been a playful return to a beloved world instead feels like a hollow echo, assembled without any clear reason to exist beyond brand recognition. Even by the already questionable standards of live-action remakes, this one struggles to justify its own presence

Maleficent (2014) – Review

Revamping classic fairy tales has quietly turned into Hollywood’s favourite safety net. We’ve seen it with Snow White and the Huntsman, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, and Oz the Great and Powerful, all of which look expensive and feel hollow. The assumption seems to be that visual splendour will do the heavy lifting, and with Maleficent, Disney leans even harder into that idea. This time with a familiar villain rebranded through the now very fashionable “misunderstood anti-hero” lens.

Maleficent is no longer the “Mistress of All Evil,” but instead a wide-eyed, winged fairy living in the Moors, a magical realm that looks like it was designed by someone who just discovered glowing mushrooms and decided to never stop. As a child (Isobelle Molloy), she befriends a human boy named Stefan (Michael Higgins). They grow close, then fall in love, because that’s what stories like this insist must happen, even when it clearly won’t end well. And it doesn’t. Stefan’s ambition to become king overrides any affection he once had, proving once again that monarchy is less about divine right and more about who is willing to do the most morally questionable thing in a forest.

Tip for Safe Ruling: Invading a magical kingdom defended by giant creatures who can squash your army like bugs feels less like strategy and more like a very expensive suicide note.

When King Henry (Kenneth Cranham) launches an attack on the Moors, Maleficent defeats him, prompting the dying king to promise his throne to whoever kills her. Now older, Stefan (Sharlto Copley), apparently decides that murder-adjacent betrayal is good enough, drugs Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) and cuts off her wings using iron, which is conveniently lethal to fairies. He presents the wings as proof of her death and becomes king. This is treated as a legitimate career move. Maleficent, understandably upset about being mutilated and emotionally wrecked, rescues a raven named Diaval (Sam Riley), turns him into her shapeshifting assistant, and settles into a life of bitterness and revenge.

“I’m going to be the Mistress of All Evil…well, at least good adjacent.”

That revenge arrives in the form of a baby. At the christening of Princess Aurora, Maleficent crashes the event and curses the infant to fall into an eternal sleep before her sixteenth birthday. Not death, mind you, just sleep, because we’re softening edges here. The curse can only be broken by true love’s kiss, which Maleficent delivers with a smirk, fully confident that such a thing doesn’t exist. King Stefan responds by hiding Aurora with three pixies—Knotgrass (Imelda Staunton), Flittle (Lesley Manville), and Thistlewit (Juno Temple)—who are so incompetent that Maleficent ends up secretly raising the child herself just to keep her alive.

So yeah, not exactly a vengeful creature of darkness.

As Aurora (Elle Fanning) grows, she comes to see Maleficent as her fairy godmother, which is either touching or deeply unsettling, depending on how much you think about it. Maleficent, meanwhile, develops genuine affection for the girl and begins to regret cursing her in the first place. She even attempts to revoke the spell, only to realize she boxed herself into a “no power on Earth” clause. Meanwhile, Prince Philip (Brenton Thwaites) shows up to fulfil contractual obligations as “romantic interest,” contributing very little beyond standing around looking earnest.

“I’m in the fairy tale, so they had to work me in somehow.”

On Aurora’s sixteenth birthday, the curse activates. She pricks her finger on a spinning wheel because, despite Stefan’s obsessive destruction of every spinning wheel in the kingdom, one somehow survives in the castle basement like a forgotten prop. Aurora falls into a deep sleep, and Maleficent, now fully remorseful, attempts to save her. Philip’s kiss fails, because of course it does, and it is ultimately Maleficent’s own maternal love that breaks the spell. This leads to a final confrontation where Stefan, now completely unhinged, tries to kill Maleficent, Diaval turns into a dragon (because apparently that’s Maleficent’s job now), and after a brief scuffle, Stefan falls to his death. Maleficent restores peace, crowns Aurora queen, and we are told—by an older Aurora—that this is the true story of Sleeping Beauty.

This is one way to rewrite history, I guess.

Stray Observations:

• Stefan’s big plan is to not kill Maleficent but still claim he did, and somehow no one checks this. Medieval HR standards were clearly very relaxed.
• The three fairies happily attending the christening of Stefan’s child raises some uncomfortable questions about loyalty. Their friend and protector was brutally betrayed by this man, yet they still show up with gifts like it’s a baby shower.
• The three pixies are then entrusted with raising a royal baby and immediately prove they cannot feed, clothe, or supervise her without divine intervention.
• Aurora trusting the horned, glowing figure lurking in the woods is either innocence or a complete lack of survival instinct.
• Prince Philip exists, technically.
• Stefan becomes consumed by paranoia, which is the film’s way of saying “we need a villain now that Maleficent isn’t one.”
• Giving Maleficent a weakness to iron is fair enough; that’s classic fairy lore. But having her forced to escape the King’s clutches, like she’s in a medieval version of a horror chase scene, is… less inspiring.

“I don’t escape people, people escape ME!”

The idea of a Maleficent origin story didn’t begin as a cynical exercise in trend-chasing, even if that’s what it ultimately feels like. Initially conceived as an animated exploration of the character from Disney’s 1959 animated classic, Sleeping Beauty, the project shifted direction as the industry became increasingly fascinated with revisionist villain narratives. The success of the Broadway musical Wicked, which reframed the Wicked Witch of the West as a misunderstood outsider, clearly left an impression. Disney, never one to ignore a profitable template, leaned into that same concept while also riding the momentum of their own stage success with Mary Poppins in London’s West End. The result is a film that feels less like a natural creative evolution and more like a strategic pivot.

Note: Maleficent not turning into the dragon herself feels like ordering a steak and being handed a picture of a cow instead. And while the dragon we get looks fine, it’s not a patch on its animated counterpart.

This is how you end a movie.

Tim Burton was attached at one stage, which makes an almost suspicious amount of sense given his fondness for gothic whimsy and outsider protagonists. But with Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows occupying his schedule, he stepped aside. Enter Robert Stromberg, a production designer making his directorial debut. And that right there explains a lot. Stromberg has an extraordinary eye for visual composition, but storytelling is a different beast entirely. This remains his only feature film as a director, which feels less like a coincidence and more like quiet industry commentary.

He’s like a king, riding one single futile charge against the odds.

Visually, Maleficent is undeniably impressive. The film strikes a careful balance between practical effects and CGI, creating a world that feels textured rather than entirely synthetic. Rick Baker’s work on Maleficent’s horns and facial prosthetics gives Angelina Jolie a striking, almost sculptural presence. The costumes, designed by Anna B. Sheppard, draw heavily from Renaissance art, particularly French and Italian influences, resulting in garments that feel both regal and otherworldly. Every frame looks like it belongs in a gallery.

The film does look rather beautiful.

And yet, all that effort is in service of a script that can’t quite justify it. The film’s central idea—humanizing Maleficent—undermines the very thing that made her compelling in the first place. In the original animated classic, she is pure, unapologetic evil, a force to be overcome rather than understood. Here, she is softened into an anti-hero, which means she can’t be allowed to do anything truly monstrous. Even her curse is toned down from death to sleep. The result is a character caught between two identities, never fully committing to either.

“Who wants a death curse? Oh, you want a death curse.”

As for the cast, Elle Fanning brings the required sweetness to Aurora, though the character herself is written with all the complexity of a porcelain ornament. Sharlto Copley commits fully to Stefan’s spiral into madness, but the role is so narrowly defined that he ends up less a character and more a function, stepping in as the film’s villain once Maleficent is softened. The three pixies, meanwhile, test the limits of patience, their bumbling antics landing closer to irritation than charm. The film ultimately belongs to Angelina Jolie, whose commanding presence does most of the heavy lifting. She looks extraordinary, fully embodies the role, and manages to find genuine emotion in a character whose central action remains… questionable at best. Because no matter how much the film layers in betrayal and regret, we’re still dealing with someone who cursed a baby, and that’s a difficult hurdle for any performance to completely overcome.

“I look magnificent, what more do you want?”

In conclusion, Maleficent is a film at war with itself. On one hand, it is a visually rich, meticulously crafted fantasy with a committed lead performance and moments of genuine emotional resonance. On the other hand, it is a narrative that bends over backwards to reframe a character who arguably never needed reframing. By stripping Maleficent of her unambiguous villainy and replacing it with a familiar tale of betrayal and redemption, the film loses something essential. It trades mythic clarity for modern relatability, and in doing so, diminishes the very figure it seeks to celebrate. There’s admiration to be had for the craftsmanship, and Jolie’s performance alone makes it watchable, but the lingering question remains whether this story needed to be told at all.

The Mummy (1999) – Review

There was a time when Universal’s monsters were tragic figures draped in shadows and existential misery. Then 1999 happened, and suddenly The Mummy decided brooding was overrated and explosions were more fun. The result is a film that gleefully ditches the doom and gloom of 1932 in favour of a rollicking, wisecracking adventure that feels like it downed three espressos and ran straight into the desert.

We begin in ancient Thebes, 1290 BC, because nothing says “light adventure romp” like ritualistic betrayal and eternal curses. Pharaoh Seti I walks in on his high priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) having an affair with his mistress Anck-su-namun (Patricia Velásquez), which goes about as well as you’d expect for everyone involved except the audience. Murder happens, she kills herself for dramatic flair, and Imhotep tries to resurrect her, only to be caught by the Medjai and sentenced to the cinematic equivalent of “absolutely not.” He’s buried alive with flesh-eating scarabs, cursed for eternity, and everyone vows to never let this incredibly bad idea happen again.

Humanity will, of course, immediately fail at that.

Jump ahead to 1926 Cairo, where librarian Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) somehow manages to be both brilliant and catastrophically clumsy. Her brother Jonathan (John Hannah), a walking bad decision, brings her a mysterious box and a map to the lost city of Hamunaptra, which he stole from Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser), currently enjoying prison life. Evelyn frees Rick through a combination of charm and questionable negotiations with a corrupt warden, because clearly the best person to guide you through cursed ruins is a guy who already barely survived them once.

It also helps if he’s a bit of a beefcake.

They head into the desert and run into a competing group of Americans, because colonial treasure hunting apparently works better as a group sport. These geniuses are guided by Beni Gabor (Kevin J. O’Connor), Rick’s former colleague and current embodiment of cowardice. The Medjai, led by Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr), show up to warn everyone to leave, which is treated with the seriousness of a “do not touch” sign at a museum. Naturally, both expeditions start digging. The Americans find the Book of the Dead and some jars, while Evelyn’s group finds Imhotep’s remains, which should have come with a massive “please don’t read anything out loud” disclaimer.

That is one juicy mummy.

Evelyn, proving that literacy can be dangerous, reads from the Book of the Dead and resurrects Imhotep. Chaos follows. Imhotep hunts down those who opened the chest, unleashes plagues, and generally turns Cairo into his personal horror show while rebuilding himself piece by piece. The group learns that he plans to resurrect Anck-su-namun using Evelyn as a human sacrifice, because clearly, she hasn’t done enough already. After losing allies, including Dr. Bey (Erick Avari), they return to Hamunaptra with pilot Winston Havelock (Bernard Fox), who dies in a sandstorm because this movie collects side characters like trading cards.

A signature moment in the film.

Back at the city, everything escalates into supernatural mayhem. Jonathan and Rick retrieve the Book of Amun-Ra, Ardeth fights off undead minions, and Evelyn is prepped for ritual sacrifice. In a rare moment of competence, the heroes actually pull off a plan: Evelyn makes Imhotep mortal, Rick stabs him, and the ancient priest dramatically dissolves while promising revenge, because villains are contractually obligated to do so. Meanwhile, Beni loots treasure, triggers a trap, and gets devoured by scarabs in one of the most deserved deaths in adventure cinema. The survivors escape as the city collapses, unknowingly carrying off some of Ben’s looted gold on the way out.

A nice ride off into the sunset.

Stray Observations:

• Evelyn reads from an ancient cursed book out loud without understanding it. This is the academic equivalent of pressing every button in a nuclear submarine to “see what happens.”
• The Medjai repeatedly warn everyone to leave, and everyone collectively decides, “No, I think we’ll stay and die.”
• Beni switches sides so often he should come with a rotating loyalty indicator.
• Rick survives multiple supernatural encounters, gunfights, and a plane crash, but somehow still trusts anyone in this movie.
• The prison warden had agreed to release a dangerous inmate for treasure. Shockingly, this ends poorly for him.
• Jonathan accidentally saves the day while mostly trying not to die, which might be the most relatable character arc here.
• Beni gets eaten alive by scarabs while clutching gold. If greed had a mascot, it’s this guy.
• When being hunted by an all-powerful Egyptian mummy, it’s very important to be surrounded by the right kind of people.

This group is par excellence. 

Getting this film made was apparently its own cursed adventure. At various points, Universal flirted with wildly different tones. Clive Barker envisioned a darker, low-budget horror take, which would have leaned heavily into the grotesque. Then George Romero, because why not add zombies to everything, had his own version that pushed it into straight horror territory. Somewhere along the way, sanity or at least box office logic prevailed, and Stephen Sommers stepped in with the radical idea that audiences might enjoy having fun. His pitch leaned into the spirit of Indiana Jones and the mythic spectacle of Jason and the Argonauts, and suddenly the film had a pulse.

“Is the Ark of the Covenant in here?”

That tonal pivot is the film’s secret weapon. It’s a captivating blend of adventure, horror, and comedy that somehow balances all three without collapsing under the weight of its own ambition. The pacing is relentless in the best way, jumping from chase to battle to supernatural chaos while still finding time for sharp humour. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a roller coaster that occasionally pauses just long enough for a joke before dropping you again.

“It says here…we are all going to die horribly.”

Visually, the film leans heavily on CGI, which in 1999 was still figuring itself out, yet it manages to capture the energy of old-school effects. There’s a clear attempt to channel the spirit of Ray Harryhausen, especially in the creature work and large-scale spectacle. The sand effects, the regenerating Imhotep, and the swarming scarabs might show their age in spots, but they still have a tactile, imaginative quality that keeps them engaging. The blend of practical sets, costumes, and digital work creates a world that feels lived-in rather than sterile.

This is great fantasy adventure stuff.

Then there’s the cast, which frankly, is what really holds this movie together. Brendan Fraser’s Rick O’Connell is the perfect adventure hero, equal parts rugged and self-aware, with just enough humour to keep him from becoming insufferable. It’s almost painful to imagine the alternate universe where Tom Cruise took the role and turned it into something far more intense and far less fun. Rachel Weisz is fantastic as Evelyn, giving the character intelligence, vulnerability, and just enough chaos to keep things interesting.

Rachel Weisz is a dream walking.

John Hannah’s Jonathan is comic relief done properly, never overstaying his welcome and somehow always landing the joke without feeling like a walking punchline. Then Kevin J. O’Connor shows up as Beni and decides moderation is for other people, nearly stealing the film outright. Beni is gloriously, unapologetically slimy, the sort of man who would betray his own reflection if it hesitated too long, yet O’Connor plays him with such twitchy, weaselly enthusiasm that he becomes impossible to dislike. You know he deserves whatever horrible fate is coming, but there’s still a part of you hoping he wriggles out of it. Every cowardly betrayal, every desperate, multilingual plea for mercy just makes him more entertaining, as he happily digs himself into a deeper and more ridiculous hole.

Beni, the ultimate sidekick whom you love to hate.

And then there’s Arnold Vosloo, who clearly missed the memo that everyone else was in a breezy adventure and decided to star in a full-on supernatural horror film instead. He plays Imhotep with absolute seriousness, never winking at the audience, never leaning into the absurdity, and that choice is exactly what makes the character work. While the heroes are busy trading quips and dodging danger with a grin, Vosloo moves through the film like an ancient force of nature, calm, deliberate, and genuinely menacing.

Historic Note: Turns out Hollywood played fast and loose with about…all of Egyptian history. The real Imhotep wasn’t a cursed, vengeance-fuelled priest but a brilliant architect behind Djoser’s pyramid around 2600 BC, later revered almost like a god. Meanwhile, the film mashes him together with Pharaoh Seti I (who lived roughly 1,300 years later) and Anck-su-namun, who actually belonged to King Tut’s era, because historical accuracy clearly got lost somewhere in the sandstorm.

I’d come back from the dead for Anck-su-namun.

Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy is what happens when a studio accidentally makes the exact right decision. It abandons the sombre tragedy of its predecessor and embraces spectacle, humour, and unapologetic adventure, creating something that feels both modern and nostalgically old-fashioned. The film’s ability to balance thrilling action, supernatural horror, and genuinely funny character dynamics gives it a timeless quality that many effects-heavy blockbusters still struggle to achieve. Backed by a charismatic cast, inventive visuals, and a tone that understands exactly what it wants to be, 1999’s The Mummy remains a standout example of how to revive a classic property without suffocating it under reverence.