Ready, set, go! The Summer 1999 movie season officially opens with The Mummy, a remake of the old 1932 Universal movie starring Boris Karloff as the Mummy. The Mummy is more reminiscent of an Indiana Jones movie than a horror movie. There are many special effects, a self-deprecating protagonist, and a beautiful woman. There is lots of adventure, and a faux romance so that most of the young boys who will love this movie will not be turned off. The Mummy is probably everything you could and would expect from a large summer blockbuster.

This time around, the Mummy (Arnold Vosloo, a South African actor) is Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian priest buried alive in the lost Egyptian City of the Dead after the Pharaoh caught him cheating with his wife. Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser of Blast From the Past) is one of the few people who know the location of the city, and Evelyn (Rachel Weisz from The Land Girls), an amateur British archaeologist, enlists his help in finding the city. Most people believe the city is just a fable, she believes it is real. A rival group of Americans goes searching for the treasure that may be in the city. After an anticlimactic race to the city, the mummy is accidentally awakened. Now, he is unleashing the 10 plagues of Egypt upon the Earth so that he can resurrect his lover. It is now up to Rick, Evelyn, Evelyn's brother Jonathan (John Hannah, Sliding Doors), and the rival treasure hunters (think red shirts in the old Star Trek) to stop the mummy and save the world.

Initial production on the movie began many years ago. The script went through many rewrites before becoming the movie we are now familiar with. The world got its first look at the Mummy during the 1999 Superbowl, before many of the special effects (done by Industrial Light and Magic) were even complete. The finished effects are good, though some of the Mummy's henchmen look and move like something out of Clash of the Titans. The filming took place on location in the 130-degree heat of Morocco. The ancient city of Hamunaptra and the ruins of the temple are marvelous sets, old decaying buildings almost crumbling in the desert heat. You can see the ending coming a mile away, but the tongue in cheek humor keeps the movie from getting boring. Fraser has somehow become the latest aw-shucks movie hunk, and does pretty much the same thing here. Weisz is the typical headstrong movie woman who is so unlike most women of her day.