I saw this some time ago, but as I had recently seen the third and first of the films, decided it was best to review them in order! Firstly a piece of advice, although I will try my absolute best not to plonk in any big spoilers here (with regard to the first film - this will be hard) I think it is best not to see this review until you've watched the first film. It should make sense, but it's always better to do things in sequence!

I really enjoyed the first film, and so when The Mummy Returns came out, I was more than keen to see it.

Story

**First - if you've not seen the first film, read this bit**

Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz), the clumsy librarian and her brother, Jonathan found an unusual, star shaped item inside a tomb, decided to investigate and went on an exploring journey. On their way, they met Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser), a prisoner, who agreed to help in return for his freedom. But there were other Americans on a treasure hunt and between the two gangs they managed to awaken a Mummy and activate a curse that would lead them battling to stop the Mummy taking over the world. The Mummy brought together its army for war and attempted to ressurect his girlfriend, Anck Su Namun, and give her Evy's body. Rick, Evy and Jonathon, with a little help from an unexpected source, fought to stop him. But did they manage to put the Mummy to rest again, for good?

**This film**

The second film of the series has its own background story. We are introduced to a time when a failing warrior, the Scorpion King, sought help from Anubis (the Jackal-headed God in Ancient Egypt), who basically saved his life and provided an inexhaustible army to destroy his enemies. In return, he gave his soul (wow, he must really have hated his enemies!) and so the story goes that should he rise again, the first person to kill him would have command of the army of Anubis.

The Mummy, Imhotep's body is brought to a museum in London, but there is more to its purpose there. Meela Nais is out to ressurect Imhotep, and she has her reasons. If you recognise her from somewhere, you're soon to know why! Imhotep is on a mission to restore his power and together they plan to take over the world (and destroy the human race, as you do).

Rick and Evy are now married with a child called Alex, but things don't stay great for long, when yet again they become entangled in the Mummy's affairs and discover that they have a lot more to do with it than had originally realised. They discover the bracelet of Anubis, but then Alex puts it on and is kidnapped by Meela with the help of the evil Hafez and his group, to lead them to the resting place of the Scorpion King in the Ahm Shere desert.

With the help of Ardeth Bey and the Medjai army, can Rick and Evy stop Imhotep from reaching and killing the Scorpion King himself, in order to raise the Army of Anubis and wipe out humanity forever?

A bit much?

The story does try to cram in an awful lot, as you can probably see from the above, and it also has to assume some people have not seen the first film and so there's some amount of recap going on too. There are, mostly due to over-ambition, I think, errors peppered across the film. I won't list these, although you can find most of them - I'm sure some you will spot yourself just watching the film - on the IMDB website if you are really interested.

Personally I wasn't sure about bringing in marriage and a kid into the equation, but actually it is quite refreshing to see filmmakers telling us life doesn't stop there. Evy and Rick find out that they actually had roles from the time of Imhotep and Anck-Su-Namun, and this is a twist I felt was a bit too weird and not really necessary. Nevertheless, it turns out to be quite a good plot. It is more fast-moving than the first film and has far more action to fit in. I did however, find that it is hard to recall the whole story and make sense of it all after seeing it only the first time. You would probably be happy to see it again, but I'm not sure you should have to watch a film twice to know what you saw.

Characters/Acting

Brendan Fraser continues in his role as Rick O'Connell in this film, and is equally as good as before. Evy - now O'Connell as she has married Rick, is played again by Rachel Weisz, which I was also glad to see. Rachel's character was starting to get more exciting towards the end of the last film, but I really liked her in this one. The relationship is different now the two are married, but it does not ruin all the fun.

Jonathan Carnahan is continued by John Hannah, again another good choice of actor, and he is still as naughty and useless as ever. But there is a new addition to he family - young Alex O'Connell, the son of Evy and Rick. Now unfortunately the maths was not done properly, so he should not have been 8 in this film yet, but I think it was an idea age as he is old enough to know when he's being naughty and to try to help out, yet young enough to be very vulnerable. He's not a brilliant actor, and some of his lines were quite weak, but he fits the part well enough.

Ardeth Bey (Oded Fehr) is also back as their ally and friend, and his part has a little more presence in this film. I really liked this character and his union with Rick and Evy. Another helper needed on the scene is Izzy Buttons(Shaun Parkes), who brought in yet more humour to the film.

The actress who plays Anck Su Namun, Patricia Velasquez, who was kept as quite a mystery character in the first, was featured a lot more in this film. We get to find out more about her and more about the story behind the Mummy. I think Velasquez was actually a good choice for this role because she gives away just the right amount in every scene without spoiling it. She does seem more "naughty" than "evil", and I'm not really sure this was intended, but she was fun to watch. On the other hand Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) and Hafez (Alun Armstrong) both continued as more serious characters. To be honest, Hafez looked the most evil of the three, and I think this was intentional.

Dwane Johnson a.k.a. The Rock plays the Scorpion King, a character, which has followed on into a movie in its own right. I can't claim to have seen it, but hopefully I will get round to that eventually.His role is brief but no less important.It was a bit difficult to see him as the character he was playing, but nevertheless where he was convincing he was very good.

Film qualities

I was not expecting it (as sequels are more often than not weaker) but the level of special effects and action in this film really exceeded the first film. It is debateable whether this is a good thing, and I'm sure there will be a lot of people that think too much was crammed in to avoid living up to the very reputation of sequels that I have mentioned. This is probably a more individual thing, but in my personal opinion, it made the film worth watching.

In the last film, Imhotep had his face in a sand storm, this time it is a huge water wave - although for some reason this wave doesn't actually wet people! The graphics again were great, and there were other great scenes too, like the Oasis in Ahm Shere, which looks even better in a hologram view that Alex gets to see when he puts on the bracelet of Anubis. I thought the battle figures, especially Jackal heads, although not perfect, made for good viewing too. There's plenty to see, and if for nothing else, this is one thing you might want to see the film for.

Classification

The film has been given a certificate 12, and is generally suitable for people over this age. I do think it is mostly people around the age of 12 who will really enjoy this film, and there was not masses to stop it from even being just PG. Okay, except some violence and people being killed by the Mummy again. As with the first film, I'd say that there are bound to be some that find it a bit too frightening, but if you can overcome the scary factor, it would be a great film for younger audiences. I think parents or people who know the kids well are really the best judge for this.

Conclusion

I was glad to have seen this film and overall I enjoyed it about as much as the first one. Although I wasn't sure about the storyline, I did find the film generally entertaining, and with a film like this, that's pretty much what I expect. I would be happy to see it again, probably a few times even. For this reason I'd actually recommend buying it. But if you've not seen the first film, I strongly recommend seeing that before you do see this one. They don't really fit together perfectly, and there are plenty of flaws that I notice the IMDB site as already listed - but in spite of all its errors, this is still a good film to see. In fact probably more fun still.