I hesitate to say that Stephen Sommers made Universal’s best Mummy movie (since I haven’t seen them all) so I’ll just say it’s easily my favorite. There’s certainly a lot it gets wrong (an overabundance of action sequences that get less and less inventive as the film goes on, tons of shoddy CGI, and Brendan Fraiser’s wobbly performance which alternates between great and terrible from scene to scene) but it’s made with such a spirit of fun, such a wonderful pace and with such wonderful characters that you can’t help but get swept up in it.
Dual MVPs go to Rachel Weisz, who plays Evy in a wonderfully dorky place (“I am…A LIBRARIAN!”) between heroine and damsel in distress, and Kevin O’Connor, whose Beni is fantastic, and probably inspired Chang in Community. Basically, this film is everything I want out of light summer entertainment because you can tell that time and care went into it’s construction, from script to shooting to editing. Shame about that sequel. B
Martha Marcy Nash and Young 