The Mummy Returns (2001) – Review

Sequels are supposed to build on success, not immediately sprint off a cliff with more money and less restraint, but here we are. The Mummy Returns takes everything that worked in the 1999 film and inflates it until it wheezes under its own excess. It’s louder, busier, and somehow less fun, like a party that hired twice the guests and forgot the music.

Seven years after the first film, Stephen Sommers decides the best way to continue this story is to give Rick and Evelyn a kid and crank the mythology dial to “nonsense.” So we open in 3067 B.C., where a doomed warrior (Dwayne Johnson) cuts a deal with Anubis for power, because apparently Hollywood still thinks every ancient god is just Satan with better branding. Now dubbed the Scorpion King, this warrior is given an army of jackal soldiers, conquers Egypt, and then gets dragged to the underworld like a cosmic unpaid intern who finished the job and got fired anyway.

He clearly didn’t read his contract.

Jump to 1933, where Rick (Brendan Fraser) and Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) are now globe-trotting parents dragging their son Alex (Freddie Boath) through ancient ruins, because nothing says responsible parenting like booby-trapped tombs. They discover the Bracelet of Anubis, which immediately latches onto Alex’s wrist and turns him into a walking GPS for apocalypse locations. Back in London, a cult resurrects Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), who is now less “ancient terror” and more “guy who keeps getting hired despite declining performance reviews.” Their plan is to use him to defeat the Scorpion King and control Anubis’s army, because villains in this universe only understand escalation.

“Step one: Acquire a Jackal Army. Step Two: Profit.”

Evelyn gets kidnapped, because of course she does, and Rick assembles the usual crew, including Jonathan (John Hannah) and Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr), to rescue her. Along the way, the film starts piling on plot threads like it’s afraid of silence. Evelyn turns out to be the reincarnation of Princess Nefertiri, Rick is apparently some chosen warrior, and Alex becomes the most competent person in the movie despite being eight. Meanwhile, Imhotep regains his girlfriend Anck-su-namun (Patricia Velasquez), who has been reincarnated as one of the cult leaders, because toxic relationships apparently transcend death and common sense.

“My dear, try not to fail so badly this time out.”

Things spiral into full chaos at the oasis of Ahm Shere, where dirigibles crash, pygmy mummies swarm, and the remaining cult members drop like flies. The movie barrels forward at such a pace that it forgets to make any of this feel meaningful. Characters run, shout, and occasionally remember they’re supposed to care about each other, all while the plot keeps layering in new mythology like a desperate student padding an essay.

They may as well have booked passage on the Hindenburg.

Inside the pyramid, the final act turns into a full-blown CGI carnival. Evelyn dies and is resurrected, Jonathan accidentally becomes useful, and Rick fights the Scorpion King, now rendered as a giant digital monstrosity that looks about as threatening as Bowser from Super Mario. Imhotep, watching Rick and Evelyn actually care about each other, realizes his own relationship is built on sand and betrayal, and promptly gives up on existence. It’s the closest thing the film has to an emotional beat, which is both surprising and a little sad.

Once again, our heroes ride off into the sunset.

Stray Observations:

• Bringing your eight-year-old into ancient tombs filled with death traps is apparently just a quirky family activity now.
• Ardeth Bay declares Rick, Evy, and Alex are “three sides of the pyramid” destined to fulfill a prophecy. Pyramids, famously, have four sides. Close enough, I guess.
• If the Medjai tribes number in the thousands and are sworn to protect against this exact scenario, it raises the question of how a full excavation team casually dug up Hamunaptra in the first place.
• Everyone agrees the bracelet is incredibly dangerous, impossible to remove, and central to unleashing an army of doom. No one considers melting it down. Problem solved, apocalypse cancelled.
• That solid gold bracelet clamped onto Alex’s arm should weigh a ton. Either this kid has the forearm strength of a dockworker or the laws of physics took the day off.
• The villains’ master plan relies heavily on resurrecting a guy who already failed spectacularly once. Bold strategy.
• Imhotep relies on the bracelet to locate the Scorpion King’s oasis, yet the valley is already littered with the remains of Roman soldiers, Napoleon’s army, and various other explorers who clearly didn’t need it. So… how hidden is this place, really?
• If Evelyn is the reincarnation of Nefertiri, and Imhotep served her father, it’s odd that he didn’t recognize her at all in the first film. You’d think that would come up.
• Rick, secretly being some chosen guardian figure, comes out of nowhere and adds absolutely nothing.
• Jonathan accidentally holding the key to everything is funny once, then the movie keeps insisting it’s a character trait.
• The sai used by Nefertiri and Anck-Su-Namun never existed in ancient Egypt. It originated in Okinawa centuries later. Apparently, the film’s research department confused “looks cool” with “historically accurate.”

It does lead to this fun scene, so I’ll give it a pass.

Universal fast-tracked the sequel after the first film’s success, and you can feel it in every frame. Sommers reportedly started developing ideas within a day, which sounds impressive until you watch the result and realize maybe a week of thinking wouldn’t have killed anyone. The film is bloated with mythology that contradicts itself, piles on unnecessary backstory, and rewrites its own characters into something flatter. Rick and Evelyn go from charming adventurers to destiny-bound archetypes, stripped of the spontaneity that made them work. And when has adding a kid to an adventure ever been a bonus?

“I’d like to feed you to some CGI pygmies.”

The visual effects deserve their own public trial. The first film balanced practical effects and CGI well enough to maintain some illusion of weight and danger. Here, the digital effects take over completely, and not in a good way. Everything looks glossy, artificial, and detached from reality. The creatures lack presence, the action lacks impact, and the infamous Scorpion King is the crown jewel of bad decisions. It genuinely looks like something rendered for a PlayStation 2 cutscene, and not a particularly good one. It’s hard to feel tension when your villain looks like he might glitch through the floor.

This is just embarrassing.

The returning cast does what they can, which is more than the script deserves. Brendan Fraser still brings that likeable, roguish energy, and Rachel Weisz tries to sell the absurd reincarnation angle with commitment. Both she and Patricia Velasquez reportedly trained extensively in martial arts to handle the more physical roles, and it shows, even if the narrative justification for it is nonsense. John Hannah, once a highlight, is pushed into overdrive and becomes more grating than funny. Then there’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, whose brief appearance as the Scorpion King is actually a plus, at least in concept. He has presence, even if the CGI version of him later on looks like it’s fighting for its life.

And why Imhotep does “Jazz Hands” remains a mystery.

As a sequel, this is where things really fall apart. It doesn’t build on the original so much as it replaces its core identity with something louder and less focused. The 1999 film worked because it balanced adventure, horror, and humour with a sense of restraint. This one ditches restraint entirely and leans into spectacle at the expense of character, tone, and coherence. Compared to earlier Mummy films, even the classic Universal entries understood the value of atmosphere and simplicity. The Mummy Returns just keeps adding until it collapses under its own weight.

No one bothered to ask, “Do we really need CGI pygmies?”

And then there’s the mythology. The film’s treatment of Anubis is especially irritating. He’s not some devil figure handing out evil armies to anyone with a dramatic monologue. In Egyptian mythology, Anubis is a guardian, a judge, a protector of the dead. Turning him into a bargain-bin dark lord feels less like creative liberty and more like someone couldn’t be bothered to read a basic summary. It’s lazy, and it drags the whole premise down with it.

Both Anubis and Hades need to get better agents.

In conclusion, The Mummy Returns is what happens when a studio confuses “more” with “better.” It throws bigger action, louder set pieces, and heavier mythology at the screen, but forgets the charm, chemistry, and balance that made the first film work. The characters are flattened into destiny-driven clichés, the humour feels forced, and the visual effects age about as well as milk left in the sun. There are still flashes of fun, mostly thanks to the cast trying to hold things together, but they’re buried under a bloated, chaotic script that never finds its footing. It’s not unwatchable, but it’s exhausting, and that’s arguably worse for a film that’s supposed to be an adventure.