Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

blackdragoon_13 I knew this movie back when I was a kid. Sincé then I enjoy it so much, mainly because of the ending, it was so different from what I seen until this movie arrived. Recently one friend of mine presented me with the DVD of this movie, immediately getting played on my TV. And yet again I loved it. I must admit that it has it's flaws (some aspects of the acting, maybe the sfx, which hadn't grow old well and the crappy sound, which is too low) but in general it's worth your money and time. The story is quite generic, but I have never seen again another movie that employs the same resources that this movie uses for fulfilling the return of Talos. Again, if you want to spend a quality time with some popcorn or other snacks, give it a try. You wont regret it. Also be merciful: it was made in the 90's, back when the quality standards were much different from today.

Sean Jump *This review definitely contains spoilers.* I had high hopes for Tale of the Mummy, and for awhile it looked like those hopes might be fulfilled. The movie gets off to a good start with a strong prologue featuring the great Christopher Lee, who of course once played one of the most impressive mummies in movie history during the heyday of Hammer Films. From there, the movie goes on to establish an interesting variation on the basic idea of the usual mummy's curse. The eponymous Mummy itself doesn't merely shamble about strangling unwary victims, but is a mini-maelstrom of bandages and wrappings which only assumes a more tangible form at the right moment.The cast is impressive, as well. Not only do we have a brief but important turn by Christopher Lee, but there's also Lysette Anthony, Shelly Duvall, Sean Pertwee, Jason Scott Lee, and even Gerard Butler (though Mr. Butler's character meets his demise just a few minutes into the proceedings).Though nothing really breaks with established mummy-movie formula at first, at least the first act of the film lays what appears to be a solid foundation for things to come. Sadly, in the second and third acts the film gets progressively worse and worse. The filmmakers try to play around with viewer expectations and then try to subvert the same with a number of unforeseen twists, but those twists are so far out of left field that they all fail, without exception. One of the problems is that for things to work out the way they do, certain characters simply cannot do and say some of the things that occur as the movie progresses. The big reveals that happen--and there are a lot of them--blatantly contradict plot points that have already been established within the dramatic progression. The ultimate revelations regarding the identify of the Mummy, his Princess, and his followers aren't merely unexpected, but thematically impossible given what has already happened. In short, the script is a cheat and in the end everything unravels like a badly embalmed corpse. Which, I suppose, is appropriate.In other respects, the production is generally hit or miss. A few of the on screen murders are creatively handled, but others are painfully ridiculous. An example of the latter occurs in a men's bathroom stall, where the Mummy wraps its prey up in its fluttering folds and...jumps into the toilet with him, resulting in a fountain of blood as the victim is pulled bodily through the works. I don't remember if the poor guy screamed in his death throes or not, as it would have been drowned out by my own laughter anyway. I mean, death by toilet? That's sure not how Christopher Lee did it back in the day. Thankfully.Special effects don't always work out, either. The Mummy eventually emerges as a rather pitiful unfinished humanoid which, for some reason, the other characters find so impressive they want to fall down on their knees and worship. The climactic action scenes are weak and unconvincing in the extreme, and the movie's only real strong point--interesting characters played by well-known performers--fails in the end because so many of the characters inexplicably become entirely different people and also because one of them happens to be an extremely annoying psychic who I dearly wish had gotten killed much earlier.Ultimately, Tale of the Mummy is a tale of futility. The story falls apart the closer it gets to the finale and in the end nothing of value is left. Even worse, Evil triumphs...the heroine sacrifices herself for nothing and the hero turns out to be an avatar for the Mummy, who attains immortality and walks out into the world to do as he will with his rejuvenated powers. Perhaps there was supposed to be a sequel. If so, somebody must have severely overestimated this particular Mummy's powers of telepathic influence because to my knowledge no such follow-up ever appeared. Either way, it's a poor finish that is totally unsatisfying on any level whatsoever.There have been a number of good films in the Mummy sub-genre, but this isn't even close to being one of them. Tale of the Mummy starts off well enough and has a good cast, but one poor storytelling decision after another, coupled with a poor FX budget, means the overall production is doomed to failure.

fellowdroogie Quite possibly one of the worst films I've ever seen. I was just wandering around my kitchen, like you do, bored, thinking up mad stuff when suddenly I had a vision of Arthur Fowler trying to fight off a mummy with a shotgun and I thought, what the hell was that film called? I remembered, obviously, and decided to offer my brief but firm opinion on this turkey. Don't be fooled when you see Christopher Lee's name amongst the first credits. Let's just say it was an ill-advised cameo. I don't remember much about the rest of the film, although it was six years ago when me and the missus stumbled across it on the Movie Channels. I wonder if there are any extras on the DVD? An explanation as to...Why?

Netherland Let's compare this movie to The Mummy, which was released a year after this one (why wouldn't we compare? everybody does). Making a mummy movie has a downside. You have to make a story in which a mummy is released or revived, and that mummy probably wants either to take over or destroy the world. This is the same in all mummy movies, so the director has something to make up, so that his movie won't be considered as 'just another mummy movie'. First: the rest of the story, which was (for me) in both The Mummy and Talos the Mummy (or 'Tale of the Mummy', as it is also often called) quite good, though The Mummy has more adventure and comedy, while Talos was more thriller. Second is the acting, which was a bit better in The Mummy (I liked Brendan Fraser and Arnold Vosloo the most in this one). Light is... different in both, because Talos is thriller-like and The Mummy adventure, but both have the light done as it should be in their genre. Music was wonderful in The Mummy, but maybe this is also because of the different genre. The, the special effects... The Mummy had good, if not great, special effects, with mummies crawling over walls and Vosloo's face in the sand (which I thought was impossible to do and make it look good). Then, in Talos, the special effects could be described best as 'pathetic'. How do they dare to do this? The worst is, I think, at the beginning, when Christopher Lee gets it (another stupidity; They list Christopher as one of the first, but he dies about five minutes after the beginning of the movie), his upper half crawls while you see him from a spot in which you can see his 'wound'... which is a computer generated effect, and when he crawls the wound dos not stay in place but just moves forward too, so at the end of the wound you can see Christopher's clothing disappear and reappear. Why has the studio let them do this, in times when dinosaurs are artificially generated, when complete armies are made by computer? Ever since movies like Star Wars and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Studios should be ashamed of special effects like the ones in Talos The Mummy (except for, off course, things like Beetlejuice, in which special effects are made bad on purpose, but even Beetlejuice had better effects than this). Shame on thee, shame on thee.