In particular, after the participants enter the hidden city of Hamunaptra (where the earliest pharaohs hid the treasure of ancient Egypt), we're treated to a non-stop series of thrills. Much like Sommer's Deep Rising, the effects of video games resonate strongly throughout The Mummy. The story's goal is to place us within a dangerous tomb of its own creation and to then regale us with a bevy of threats-such as silver dollar-sized bugs that burrow beneath the skin of their victims and pressurized, flesh-eating salt acid that erupts from tomb doors. Writer/director Stephen Sommers (who also directed Deep Rising and Disney's live-action The Jungle Book) has re-fashioned The Mummy as an adventure story strongly reminiscent of the opening tomb-robbing sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The mummy movies universal studios serial#
Not surprisingly, The Mummy is much closer to Raiders of the Lost Ark (which also drew upon the serial tradition) than to any previous mummy movie. (This opening sequence draws upon the 1959 Hammer Films version of The Mummy.) But soon afterwards, The Mummy eschews most vestiges of horror for an action-packed format that evokes the old Saturday afternoon serials of the '30s and '40s. We still get the requisite opening scene that takes us to Egypt, circa 1290BC, and shows us Imhotep being wrapped as a mummy while still alive-as punishment for his affair with the pharaoh's mistress. Most importantly, however, Universal has revised the story completely. This new creature moves like a whirlwind and fights like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now, this ain't your granddad's mummy anymore.
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Therefore, Universal has completely redesigned the creature (thanks to digital effects). In Universal's previous incarnations of the story, as in the classic (but highly overrated) 1932 version with Boris Karloff, the mummy was moldy and crumbling, barely capable of holding itself together long enough to carry out its nefarious duty. That's the central problem that Universal Pictures ran up against when creating this version of The Mummy.
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Do mummies really scare anybody? It's a little difficult to get concerned about a shuffling bundle of bandages that moves at about one mile per hour.