THURSDAY, MAY 13, 1999

'Mummy' tied in special effects

By Trond M Vagen

On-Line Forty-Niner

Cheap story, cheap one-liners and great special effects. It could have almost been "Titanic." But thankfully, "The Mummy" does more than that, thanks to the charm of its main characters and the relative ease with which it moves along.

The film tells the story of young, sexy librarian Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), who happens upon a map leading to the fabled city of the dead deep in the Egyptian desert.

Together with her rogue brother (John Hannah) and the enlisted help of former French Foreign Legion officer Rick O'Donnell (Brendan Fraser), she sets out to find the city and an ancient book buried there.

But buried there is also the Mummy, or Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), as he once was called. A high priest of the Pharoahs and lord of the dead, he engages in a little fling with the Pharoah's mistress, the beautiful Anck-Su-Namnun (Patricia Velasquez).

This makes the Pharoah quite unpleased, and while she commits suicide, Imhotep is mummified alive, buried in a sarcophagus with flesh-eating scarabs as his only company.

A terrible curse is cast upon his grave, and if he were ever unearthed, he would rise and cast terror upon the earth in the form of various unpleasant natural disasters.

Needless to say, the bold adventurers open the wrong sarcophagus and read scriptures from the wrong book, resulting in Imhotep's return. He is ready to rock the world - if he can get past O'Donnell & Co. first.