While I do like "The Mummy Returns", it was a little too silly for me. And I can only hope that our movies return to this movie-type some day soon. "The Mummy" is an epic adventure from beginning to end. Audiences just want movies where everyone dies (a lot of the time including the hero(es)), the music is heavily synthesized, and the plot is simplistic. Shortly after its release is when movies began to take a turn for the worse and become darker, and for what ever crackbutt reason, darker is what the American Audience wants. While "The Mummy" was a blockbuster, it is sadly one of those unappreciated movies. It is just such a FUN movie! The sites (and sights), the sound design, the CGI (while I won't say it's perfect), and, of course, Jerry Goldsmith's masterpiece of a score which can take Alan Silvestri's for "The Mummy Returns" to the cleaners any day of the week.
"The Mummy" just packs it all from Adventure to Horror to Fantasy to Drama to Comedy, and in my humble opinion, it succeeds superbly in all five genres.
And it was a great way to end the 90's, which I still believe to be one of the best movie decades we knew how to make great movies and we knew how to make great trailers for those great movies-not just rapidly flashing scenes with drums and clashing and building violins, but REAL trailers edited to perfection with great music. Don't get me wrong, we have had lots of great movies since '99, but I really feel that this is the last one where it was just 10 for 10 great.