Honest, hard working mum of two. Studying with OU.
Honest, hard working mum of two. Studying with OU.
Member since:28.07.2000
Reviews:37
Members who trust:2
I had already seen this film on Sky movies and had absolutely loved it, and as I am a huge Brendan Fraser fan, there was no ther choice for my first DVD.
The film tells the story of Rick O'Connell, Evie and Jonothan and a group of Americans, who go to Hamonaptra, the city of the dead, to search for long lost treasure, but instead they unearth a 3000 year old corpse, a creature of great power if he is resurrected, Impotep. The trio then set out to destroy the creature they have unleashed on the world before he can regenerate and become immortal, with the help of the Magi, who have sworn to protect the world from the creature for 3000 years.
The film is a remake of Universal's legendary 1932 horror classic, The Mummy, that stared Boris Karloff as Impotep. It combines the thrills and spills of an action adventure with the supense of a horror flick, but without any of the blood and guts associated with more traditional horror or slasher flicks.
The film features great special effects, some wonderful characters, an interesting and very absorbing storyline, and some wonderful humour injected by John Hannah. The whole look and feel of the film is pretty slick and there are some wonderful scenes of suspense, where you aren't quite sure what is going to happen next. You know...... the whole 'jumps out from behind a pillar and scares the pants off you' kind of action. It is also a subtle love story with the developing relationship between Rick O'Connell and Evie.
The film looks great on DVD and actually lends itself brilliantly to this format, because of the use of colour, light and dark. Watching it on DVD makes for very sharp picture quality, and using the hall surround on my TV makes is a fantastic home cinema experience.
The DVD itself features several extras, including: 1. Making of featurette: 'Building a better mummy' - this shows how they got from the mummy in 1932 film to the Imotep you see in this version. It also has interviews with the creators, and the way they worked. Very interesting stuff.
2.Deleted scenes - scenes that weren't shown in the original version.
3. Visual special effects: Formulation featurette - this shows how the various effects were built up, from the scenes with the actors and how animations were added. This makes you realise just what can actually be done these days.
4. Feature commentary - this is the whole movie with a commentary by the director, Stephen Sommers and editor, Bob Ducsay, which is quite long, but better watched in short bursts. It is quite funny in parts and also very revealing about the making of the movie and offers the directors thoughts on the whole process from the starting point to the finished product, and also comments about the actors and characters, and insights into what they might do in a remake. I loved this part of the extra features.
There are also other extras: Egyptology 101 (facts about ancient Egypt), a trailer, production notes, animation menus, menu music, cast and filmakers notes, as well as DVD ROM features of an interactive mummy game, 2 screensavers and electronic postcards. The film is also in the 2:35:1 Widescreen format, Dolby Digital in both English and German, and features subtitles in English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, Greek, Hebrew, Polish and Czech.
I would heartily recommend this DVD as an addition to anyone's DVD collection. Not only is it a terrific adventure story and a departure from the more traditional horror films, it looks fantastic on DVD, and the extra features are well worth the difference in price between DVD and video. That and the improved picture shrpness and quality, amke it a complete home cinema experience. My copy is going to be well worn out before the end of the year, because I love it!!!!
Personally I think this will become a DVD classic movie.
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Advantages: brilliant acting, great special effects, tonnes of special features, cheap Disadvantages: feels as if special effects are prioty over acting, storyline wasn't as good
May 27th, 2001
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