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Summary: Mummies have never been scarier! In
life as in death, the High Priest Imhotep vows eternal love with Pharaoh's mistress,
and the beautiful but scatterbrain Evelyn unknowingly helps the High Priest
come back to life and offers the use of her body to bring the Pharaoh's
mistress back to life. This remake of the 1932 classic is a big
crowd-pleaser with its non-stop heart-pounding action, amazing visual
special effects, and flirtatious romance. As an Ultimate Edition,
"The Mummy" DVD is a real treasure and is worth its weight in
gold. I highly recommend it.
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The Story
In Thebes 1290 B.C. where the forbidden love between High
Priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) and the Pharaoh's favorite mistress,
Anck-su-namun, results in the murder of Pharaoh Seti. For their undying love,
Anck-su-namun kills herself knowing that Imhotep will resurrect her with his
magic powers. Unfortunately, Imhotep is stopped and himself condemned to the homdai curse
along with his devoted monks.
The Med-jai Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr) and his warriors have
been successfully keeping treasure seekers at bay for over 3000 years until
the men of the French Foreign Legion find their way to the burial ground in
the Sahara in 1925. During the battle between the Med-jai and the
legionnaires, Corporal Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) stumbles upon the
octagonal key before departing Hamanaptra on foot to Cairo. Coincidentally,
Jonathan (John Hannah) runs into the drunken Rick and conveniently lifts the
key. Soon after, Rick lands himself in jail for deserting the Legion.
Meanwhile, Jonathan impresses his librarian sister Evelyn
Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) with his new-found treasure which is really a map to
the legendary lost city of Hamanaptra. As you can guess, the smart and
determined
Evelyn will combine efforts with Rick to retrieve the Book of the Dead. And
as the movie title indicates, Imhotep comes back to life in the form of a
mummy to terrorize the
living. "The Mummy" is a real crowd-pleaser, with its
non-stop heart-pounding
action, amazing visual special effects, and flirtatious romance.
The Extras
On Disc One, the feature film is presented in widescreen version
with both DTS
and Dolby
Digital 5.1 soundtracks, along with the following bonus features:
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"Building a Better Mummy" summarizes how the 1932
version of "The Mummy" leaves an impression on young Stephen Sommers and
now he has modernized the screenplay using latest computer graphics and
special effects. This feature is a must-see to fully appreciate
the amount of work gone into making this entertaining thriller.
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Cast and filmmakers features Brendan Fraser, Rachel
Weisz and John Hannah
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Production notes (10 pages)
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Egyptology 101 explains the artifacts, the Gods,
immortals, plagues and map
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DVD newsletter where viewers can register online at http://dvd.universalpictures.com
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DVD-ROM features include interactive games, screen
savers, wallpapers and additional information about the movie
On Disc Two, the feature film is presented in full screen
with Dolby
Digital 5.1 soundtracks for English and French and Dolby
Surround for Spanish. The
bonus materials are:
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Highlights of "The Mummy Returns"
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Three
deleted scenes
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Visual and special effects narrated by visual effects
supervisor John Berton (City of Thebes, Scarab Burial, Serious Trouble,
Imhotep Eats Scarab, Rick Rescues Evelyn)
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Storyboard to final film
comparison (Hangman's Noose, Scarab Run, and Trouble in Cairo)
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Photograph
montage, pharaoh lineage (Old 2700-2200 B.C., Middle C. 2000-1800 B.C., and
New 1576-1069 B.C. Kingdoms)
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"The Mummy" theatrical trailer
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"The Mummy Returns" trailer
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Mummy game trailer
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DVD-ROM features
Video & Audio
The image quality of this anamorphic
widescreen DVD is excellent. The colors are accurate and
saturated, while shadow detail is very good. The video
transfer is top notch and does justice to the awesome visual special effects
and beautiful cinematography. Also available is a full screen version
of the film on Disc Two. Both the DTS
and Dolby
Digital 5.1 soundtracks are well balanced with aggressive use of the surround channels.
The dialog remains clear throughout the entire movie. As good as the
Dolby Digital soundtrack is, I do prefer the DTS Surround Sound option, as
it better reproduces all of the nuances of the excellent sound design and
beautiful musical score by Jerry Goldsmith.
Conclusion
Though "The Mummy" is a remake of the 1932
classic of the same name, director Stephen Sommers adds some amazing technological twists which make
"The Mummy" so realistic and incredibly terrifying. This
movie and its Ultimate Edition DVD is a winner in every respect. I
highly recommend it. If you do enjoy "The Mummy", be sure to
check out the sequel, "The Mummy Returns",
also available on DVD.
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Visit The Mummy web site and
the Universal
Studios home video web site.
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Associated equipment used in evaluation: Sony
DVP-S7700 reference DVD player, Sony
KP-61V45 61" rear projection TV (4:3 screen aspect ratio), Sony ES STR-V444ES A/V receiver, four
B&W CDM 9NTs as left/right main speakers
and left/right surrounds, B&W CDM CNT center channel speaker, Monster Cable M-series S-Video cable MSV-500, Monster
Cable Interlink LightSpeed 100 (Toslink) optical cable, Monster Cable
Interlink 400 MKII interconnects, Monster Cable
Original speaker cables in bi-wire configuration with Monster Cable twist-on gold-plated banana plug
connectors, Lovan Sovereign T HiFi audio
rack, and Sony MDR-V600 studio monitor headphones. Our home theater equipment was calibrated
with the Video
Essentials DVD.
Be sure to check out our Top 10 DVDs of the year
2001 and our list of this year's Oscar winners on DVD.
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United We Stand
