Summary
The O’Connells, played by Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, do battle with Imhotep, played by Arnold Vosloo, all over again this time bringing their kid, played by Freddie Boath, along as well.
I think in many ways this film really tries to recapture the magic of the first film and in some ways really succeeds in that quest whilst at the same time drastically failing in other areas. I think on the whole this is a diminished sequel that fails to live up to the first film.
My two main issues with this film are that the iffy CGI and VFX work of the first film is turned up to one hundred here and becomes laughably bad. This really hurts the film as it stops it being scary anymore. In addition the child actor playing the O’Connells kid is really quite terrible and his distractingly bad performance also drags you out of the film. Child actors are rarely good in any film but this one is particularly annoying throughout and this is only made worse by how much the film likes to focus on him.
The two things I will give this film credit for however are, one that they raise the stakes from the first film and really start to flesh out the world as a whole and two that they bring back Ardeth, played by Oded Fehr, from the first film and give him a lot more to do which is nice considering he is one of the most interesting characters in the entire series. I would argue quite passionately that it should have been Ardeth that got the spin-off film and not Dwayne Johnson’s Scorpion King but hey.
Overall, a lesser sequel but one that still gets some stuff right.
3/5
Pros.
The wider scope
Brining back Ardeth and giving the character more to do
Still some good moments and scares
Cons.
The CGI work is awful
The kid is incredibly annoying and the film focuses on him way too much
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Another Millennial Reviewer 