The Mummy turns 25 but it’s like it came out yesterday for those who, as a teenager, slipped into the room more than once to rejoice over and over again in the exploits of Rick O’Connellof that chaotic, bizarre adventure, yet full of ideas and feelings, which conquered the box office all over the world. At the time, Stephen Sommers’ film was received in a mixed waytoday we must recognize that marked a glorious and unrepeatable chapter of that entertainment cinema, which in recent years has lost all that imagination, pinch of madness that The Mummy after a quarter of a century it has not ceased to represent for everyone.
The genesis of a film that no one believed in at first
The Mummy was strongly connected to the iconic 1932 original, directed by Karl Freund and referred to for decades as a masterpiece of the horror genrewhich contributed to fueling the myth of Boris Karloff but above all he made the Egyptian monster, one of the most used creatures from that moment on. James Jacks And Sean Danielthe two producers, since the end of the ’80s, tried to find the right project, to have a creative team that could convince the studios to conceive something more than a generic b-movie. Names of the caliber of were involved Joe DanteGeorge A. Romero, Clive Barker, Wes Craven, but as Universal progressively widened the purse strings, it was not possible to understand what type of film should come out, whether a horror, a sci-fi or something else. Stephen Sommers had seen Freund’s film as a child and loved it and offered himself to Jacks and Danile to create something that combined the mysterious and dark atmospheres of the ’32 film, with the key elements of the saga Indiana Jones and the old adventure-fantasy of the 60s. In his hands, The Mummy it became a sort of mix between an elementary and not excessive horror, an exotic adventure H. Rider Haggard, with continuous comedy and melody inserts. The choice to set everything in the 1920s was desired by Sommers precisely to break away from the growing offer of sci-fi titles that flooded the screens in that period, just one of the many successful choices made by the director and screenwriter. For the protagonist, Rick O’Connell, names were mentioned Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck even, but nothing came of it. Then Jacks and Daniel remembered George King of the Junglea small surprise at the box office from two years earlier and from the leading actor: Brendan Fraser.
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Brendan Fraser was a mysterious creature of the cinema of those years. Handsome, athletic, he was particularly gifted at comedy, but he had also done horror and thrillers. However, the right title never arrived to make it stand out. Jacks and Daniel understood that in him there was something halfway between Indiana Jones and the colorful and funny characters that stars of the caliber of Erroll Flynn and Gene Kelly had made iconic in the Hollywood of the past. They were chosen alongside him Rachel Weisz, Arnold Vosloo And John Hannahrespectively in the roles of Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan and Imhotep, the cursed dark priest, the villain of the story. The Mummy it cost 62 million and was shot in just 6 weekswith filming that in Morocco was a struggle against the elements and the local fauna between scorpions, snakes, ants, sandstorms, and Fraser almost hanging for real during filming. In the studios in London, the employees of Industrial Light & Magic they contributed to making The Mummy a small laboratory in which to experiment with motion capture which then The Lord of the Rings would have used to Gollum. The result of so much effort and madness, it was a very tasty adventure, with incredible mass scenes, worthy of the best blockbustersbeautiful sets and costumes, but with a light-hearted streak perfect for the general public. The Mummy came to fill that void that was his own Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade he had left 10 years earlier in everyone’s hearts. Rick O’Connell was a very worthy heir, in a simple but effective storywith a villain like Imhotep, who proved to be a key element to the success of a film that was able to combine multiple genres and multiple atmospheres in an admirable way.
Laughter, an iconic villain and a hero to love
It was Arnold Vosloo to suggest to Sommers to make his Imhotep (inspired by one of the prominent figures of the Third Dynasty), a damned spirit for whom however we can feel compassion. The South African actor knew how to give the right mix of darkness and light to a man cursed for having loved a forbidden womanand even today his is one of those villains who know how to exert a unique charm. Imhotep it had within it the most disturbing elements of Freund’s creature, the protagonist of a multitude of films, comics and TV series from 1932 onwards. Sommers, however, combined her with what had been the Terminator, the zombies, biblical demons, conceiving something that could not be stopped, which fed on the body of those who desecrated her but at the same time was endowed with feelings, personality and desires. The Mummy he also represented all this visually in a crazy wayafter 25 years the special effects remain of an absolute level, with that corpse in recomposition followed by that Beni Gaborwhat a great guy Kevin J. O’Connor made him one of the nicest, slimiest and most iconic villains in the cinema of those years. But without Brendan’s Rick, none of this would have helped. “He was as good as the most famous actors” Sommers still remembers today “but it was much easier to work with and deal with”. His Rick O’Connell is a reckless hero, often vain yet bold, but to which Fraser was also able to give a certain clumsiness, self-irony, ridiculousness that avoided the risk of a certain “rambism” that was absolutely out of place. Fraser’s career, thanks to the harassment suffered by Philip Berk and the frequent injuries on set, it didn’t evolve as hoped. We had to wait for Aronofsky and the beautiful The Whale to give him a role worthy of his talent. But in that 1999, The Mummy it allowed him to enter the hearts of the public and never leave again.
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The Mummy grossed $415 millionwas the big box office surprise Universal was looking for. Stephen Sommers also had the sequel, unfortunately terrible on every level, which if nothing else marked The Rock’s big screen debut. The third, even more modest, episode of the saga would then arrive, before that reboot with Tom Cruise in 2017, which is still referred to today as the tombstone on the Dark Universea real cinematic crime. The truth is that The Mummy remains unrepeatable because it is a symbol of that fusion between big budgets and independent creativity, which over time the studios have completely put out of the picture. It was one of the last cases of this creative process. With female characters that are anything but banala casting for the time that was anything but plagued by whitewashing and a much deeper study of ancient Egypt than one might seem, The Mummy it remains one of those remakes that do well, very well at the cinema. He achieved success without any big names, but with the ability to reinvent a genre and above all give centrality to the villain, from certain points of view the true, great protagonist of the entire franchise. That simply wanting to entertain the public in every way had the two as its only heirs Aquaman by James Wan and the cinema of James Gunn, perfect in their colorful grandeur connected to the recovery of the light-hearted adventure narrative. The Mummy it remains a beautiful moment for the younger audience and for the adult one who wanted to go back to being a child, it is one of the most perfect examples of the main role of the seventh art: have fun lightlywhich is very different from that banality that studios today wield like a club towards the public.
