The one thing I can say about this sequel straight away is kudos for the continuity, Sommers has managed to gather all the original cast to carry on and this does wonders for an otherwise very average film. Usually you tend to see the odd character played by someone else which always looks poor in my eyes.
Any who we kick off again with more nasty villains after treasure and power which we all know will end in tears...and probably some kind of horrible face melting death, there I go with my Indy comparisons again. This time we have the combination of Imhotep back for more punishment with his reincarnated love, the Scorpion King which doesn't really serve much purpose other than to give The Pebble....I mean The Rock a spin off franchise and a small group of nasty well spoken cads led by British thesp Alun Armstrong.
The main problem with this follow up is thus, they gave the now happily married heroes a son as baggage, this of course automatically equals a much kiddie friendly film with allot more slapstick, dumb humour and much much less horror. Of course the first film did very well so you can't blame them for opening up the film for an even wider audience but of course they lose a lot of integrity and faith from the more mature fans. I should really point out that they take the Indy comparisons a bit too far by actually dressing all the villains henchmen in the same type of costumes as in 'Temple of Doom'....really that was the last Indy thing I swear.
The entire film is much more of a CGI show this time around, that wouldn't be an issue but the CGI really has not dated well, even less so than the original film, hell even at the time this CGI wasn't too good. Add to this a lot more over the top action which becomes too silly, terrible bluescreen shots, a laughable effort at a CGI scorpion cross The Rock monster and almost the same sequences shot for shot from the first film in places...did I mention the horrific CGI?
Yes you get what you pay for here, you want more ludicrous mummy blasting action? you got it, you want action figure characters all dressed in desert coloured attire spouting the most idiotic, state the obvious exposition dialog? look no further. Unfortunately like many blockbuster sequels they just get carried away and completely lose your suspension of disbelief. Can't complain too much as you know exactly what to expect from this and it doesn't pretend to be anything else, personally I think it was just a poor glossy rehash which is more cartoon than film. The final 20min as the action all comes together is one of the biggest CGI messes I've seen ever, everything looks really very clearly artificial, but hey the Egypt setting was an enjoyable ride.
3/10
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