Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Rick and Evelyn O’Connell, along with their 8-year-old son Alex, discover the key to the legendary Scorpion King’s might: the fabled Bracelet of Anubis. Unfortunately, a newly resurrected Imhotep has designs on the bracelet as well, and isn’t above kidnapping its new bearer, Alex, to gain control of Anubis’s otherworldly army.
The Mummy Returns is a crowd-pleasing sequel that recaptures the fun energy of the original while escalating the stakes with a son in peril and the Scorpion King subplot. However, the plot is largely a retread of its predecessor's beats — resurrected villain, ancient MacGuffin, globe-trotting chase — offering little narrative freshness. The acting remains charming and earnest from Fraser and Weisz, though nothing exceeds the first film's performances. Cinematography is competent blockbuster work but unremarkable. The ending is notably weakened by the infamous CGI Scorpion King, widely considered one of the era's worst visual effects moments, undermining what should have been the climactic payoff.