It’s Officially the End of an Era for HBO Max’s Stellar Action Trilogy

Action movies and horror movies are, at their core, designed to get the audience’s blood pumping. Whether it’s through a carefully choreographed fight scene or an expertly timed jump scare, there’s a reason why the phrase “edge of your seat” best applies to these types of movies. So what happens when you combine the two? You might get the strange mix of goth aesthetics, deeply crafted lore, and tragic romance that is Underworld. You might even get a gloriously gritty outing like Overlord. There is one movie that perfectly blended action and horror together and kicked off an entire franchise, and there’s only a week left to watch it on HBO Max.

That movie would be The Mummy, the 1999 reimagining of the classic Universal Monster. While the original 1932 version of The Mummy was chock-full of chilling horror, the 1999 version takes a more action-packed approach. Writer/director Stephen Sommers pitched his take as a “sweeping desert epic” that would feature plenty of guns and sword fights while also keeping the terror of a reanimated corpse intact. If you haven’t seen The Mummy or its sequels, you’d better hurry, as the trilogy departs HBO Max on May 29.

‘The Mummy’ Perfectly Blends Action, Romance & Horror

Image via Universal Studios

At its core, The Mummy is a romantic story. Not only do you have the slowly budding romance between librarian Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) and soldier turned treasure hunter Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser), but the titular mummy Imhotep (Arnold Voosloo) is seeking to resurrect his lover Anck-su-namun. Fraser and Weisz’s chemistry lights up the screen almost as much as any explosion — and there are plenty of explosions, as Sommers goes all out with the action sequences. Whether it’s Rick and Imhotep’s final fight inside a pyramid, or Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr) showcasing his swordsmanship skills, there’s enough man vs. monster action in The Mummy for two movies.

Sommers went even further with The Mummy Returns, which finds a now married Rick and Evelyn going on a quest to save their son Alex; the return of Imhotep, who can now weaponize the biblical plagues that once terrorized Egypt; and a new form in the form of the Scorpion King (Dwayne Johnson). Both The Mummy and The Mummy Returns were major successes, so it only makes sense that Universal would go for a third installment. However, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was a major departure from everything that made the first two movies work.

Rachel Weisz opted not to return for Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, as she had just given birth; in her place was Maria Bello, and while Bello is fairly decent, the dynamic between Fraser and Weisz was a large part of what made the first two Mummy movies work. While Jet Li makes for a menacing screen presence as the titular Dragon Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, he and his army of soldiers are Terracotta statues, which is a far cry from actual mummification. Even Stephen Sommers didn’t return to the director’s chair, instead being replaced by Rob Cohen. What followed is a movie that packs the same action as its predecessors, but lacks the same spirit.

‘The Mummy’ Spawned an Entire Franchise

The success of The Mummy spawned an entire franchise, including a spinoff in the form of The Scorpion King, an animated spinoff that picks up where The Mummy Returns left off, and a stellar ride at Universal Studios Hollywood. Said franchise is even getting a new lease on life, as a new movie is being developed that will see Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz returning to their roles as Rick and Evelyn O’Connell. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the directors behind the filmmaking team Radio Silence, confirmed that this new Mummy was a “dream project” for them.

“Anytime a piece of entertainment can have an effect on your personal life or the way that you view the world, what an amazing thing. And by the way, to do it the way the Mummy movies did it with such kindness and fun and entertainment forward, that’s an amazing lineage to get to follow in the footsteps of.”

Fans of action and horror movies owe it to themselves to check out the Mummy trilogy. IT’SS packed with plenty of action, disturbing imagery of the undead, and enough romance to crack even the hardest hearts. The phrase “they don’t make movies like this anymore” is tossed around a lot, but it’s truly rare that a movie’s pulled off a genre mashup this well.

Release Date

May 7, 1999

Runtime

124 minutes