Young Indiana Jones takes on the Mummy. It works.
Course a thriller of this nature has to have the requisite archetypes:
The Mummy starts with a prologue of how Imhotep the priest came to be the cursed mummy. The CGI F/X recreating the pyramids and surroundings in all of their then glory is a showstopper. You swear you have been transported to ancient Egypt.
The movie shifts to 1923 where Weisz is hard at work as a librarian at the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo. A sequence takes place in the library where Weisz does something which is either an homage or ripoff to a scene in Disney's Hercules . Either way, what happens is still quite funny.
The gang makes their Lawrence of Arabia-like way to the City of the Dead where treasure (and the mummy of course) await. Once the mummy is released and goes on his rampage, then Hell does break loose.
The actors are to be commended for the job they did. Many times they had to "interact" with CGI mummies which would not be in the shot until the postprocessing. Fraser especially deserves kudos for the fight sequence with a dozen mummified priests. The CGI is so good that the mummies blend in perfectly to the set. You believe he is actually fighting mummies on the spot. (And the fight is quite comic to boot.)
The music is by Jerry Goldsmith. It sets the proper archetypical tone.
This type of flick needs to move right along, and The Mummy lays rubber. Only a couple of times is the suspension of disbelief in danger of snapping when events work out a little too perfectly. At least it's not near the SoD snapper that The X-files movie was in that respect, so only minor quibbles here.
The Mummy is a damn good popcorn movie. You get thrills, chills, humor, and little romance. What more could you want from a summer flick?
Movie's suitability for: