THE MUMMY RETURNS (2001) **1/2 They studied what worked in the first of the series and buffed it out: more high-quality special effects, non-stop action, systematically droll lines from Brendan Fraser, and exotic locations. They've also added spices of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Spy Kids to the Indiana Jones base. Fraser and Rachel Weisz have clearly gained confidence since the first film and provide us with attractive characters worth voting for for reasons that go well beyond their being the headliners and knowing that they're going to win. Neither are likely to light up the Shakespearean circuit but they're good fun and more than serviceable for films like this. Patricia Velazquez is great as the evil and abstruse Egyptian beauty- will someone please sign her up to do the Leila Khaled story while she's still lithe enough to flip around like that?! It hadn't been over three minutes when I asked my daughter if they were going to make a third in the series, definitely a sign that things are working.
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