Mummy Returns, The is rated PG-13: for adventure action and violence.

Obviously unable to learn from past experience, Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) is willing to unwrap yet another Mummy in this sequel. Since the close of the last movie, he has married Evelyn the Egyptologist (Rachel Weisz), who has become a mommy of a different sort. Along for this expedition is their eight-year-old son Alex (Freddie Boath) who digs in the sand while mom and dad look for artifacts.

One of the little trinkets they find is a scorpion-shaped bracelet once worn by the Scorpion King (played by The Rock). Taking it home to England, young Alex can't resist trying it on, but doing so starts a chain of events that lead to the return of the Scorpion King who commands the army of the dead.

Meanwhile the curator of the British Museum (Alun Armstrong) secretly excavates the remains of Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo)--the bad mummy from the first film, and brings them to London. With the help of his assistant (who looks amazingly like the woman Imhotep was having the affair with 3000 years earlier), Imhotep is resurrected, setting the stage for two powerful evil forces to contend over possession of the armlet that is the key to controlling the immortal militia.

Needless to say, with this many people wanting a piece of the action, there is little time for dialogue between fighting. After more than two hours of seeing people stabbed, shot, beaten, slammed, thrown, decapitated, pulled in half, and munched (remember those beetles?), my numbed brain could hardly detect what little suspense was left in the script, leaving me to conclude that this Mummy is more violent, but perhaps less scary than its predecessor.

While this is no tiptoe through the pyramids, parents will find little other objectionable content unless depictions of reincarnation (a pivotal plot element) are a concern. With a happily married couple for lead characters, only a few mild profanities, and the most sexual incident being yet another brief shot of Patricia Velasquez in her body-paint outfit, it's unfortunate The Mummy Returns resorts to fists and bullets to raise the audience from the dead.

Studio: 2001 Universal Pictures.

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Overall: C
Egyptian adventurers Rick and Evelyn are back again. Now married with an eight-year-old son, they still can’t resist digging up the past and getting into trouble. We’re all for a family adventure, but with the amount of violence in this flic, mommies everywhere may want to leave the kids at home.

Violence: D
Violence depicted in an adventurous swashbuckling style with little blood. A few “scare” scenes included where something suddenly appears on screen. Violence details: A decapitated head followed by a body is briefly seen. Several large battles with hand-to-hand combat. Man is stabbed. Man holding a gun. Men carrying guns and knives. Boy shoots men with slingshot three times. Scorpions climbing up man’s legs. Man and woman running from flood. Boy is stranded on scaffold while man attempts to kill him. Boy’s life threatened by falling rocks. Men attacked by scarab beetles that crawl under skin. Men with guns threaten another man. Knife held to mans throat. Woman threatens man with poisonous snake. Woman pulls knife on man. Man is stabbed. Woman kicks man. Extended fight evolving knives and swords. Woman hits man, knocking him out. Man with machine gun shoots repeatedly, killing people. Woman kidnapped. Partially decomposed animated characters seen many times. Gunfight involving many people, two men fall into fire and are burned, many others are shot and started on fire. Stolen bus driven recklessly through streets. Man shooting at decomposing mummies. Men violently thrown against walls. Man clawed by mummy. Mummy shot and blasted through window. Man pokes eye sockets of mummy. Mummy slammed into a bridge. Boy kidnapped. Mummy sucks life out of man, decomposing him. Man threatens boy with knife. Men fly through air and smack into stone pillars. Two scenes where women engage in knife fight, once to entertain an audience, the other with the intent to kill. Woman stabs herself. Wall of water drowns an airship. Another large fighting scene with shooting. Small animated “pygmy” creatures chase, shoot darts, and appear to eat people. Many of these creatures are shot. Men in quicksand, heads are pushed under. Swordfight results in one death, blood is seen. Man is shot. Man stabbed. Woman stabbed. Man has hand mangled. Two large armies, one made up of dog-like creatures, attack each other with hand-to-hand (paw?) combat. Many dog-faced creatures killed. Man and woman in fist fight. Large animated man/crab creature attacks two men, one is picked up and pulled apart. Man drops into a hellish-style pit full of strange creatures and dies. Woman falls into a pool of bug-like creatures and dies.

Sexual Content: B+
A husband and wife kiss, somewhat passionately, a few times. Woman dressed in low-cut dress revealing ample cleavage. A woman kisses a decomposing mummy. Woman briefly seen wearing only body paint and a small thong-like cloth, however little detail can be seen of her body.

Language: B
At least: 7 mild profanities, 7 terms of Deity used as expletives or profanities.

Alcohol / Drug Use: A
No content noted.

Talk about the movie with your family…

Want to make your own mummy? Visit Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum web site where you can learn how to make a mummy, spell your name in hieroglyphics, and even take a virtual tour of their Egyptian gallery. And there are no scarab beetles! Click here: http://www.rom.on.ca/egypt/case/activities.html

If you missed out on the blockbuster hit that introduced Rick, Evelyn, and Imhotep, check our review of The Mummy (1999).