Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Tale of the Mummy Blu-ray Movie Review

Attack of the killer bandages.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 6, 2012

I have confused terror with pleasure.

In Director Russell Russell Mulcahy's (Resident Evil: Extinction) Tale of the Mummy, there's an awful lot of terror and not a whole lot of pleasure. But even the "terror" isn't exactly the "good" kind of terror. No, the film isn't frightening or even partially scary. The terror comes in just how slow, predictable, and pointless the movie plays. On the flip side, the only real "pleasure" comes in the form of a few fleeting moments with the venerable Christopher Lee (a slow week in Lee's schedule must have matched up with this film's shooting schedule) and, of course, the end credits which roll mercifully before even ninety minutes and after a typical bad movie goofy ending shot that will leave audiences rolling their eyes rather than recoiling backwards into their seats with fear, glad that the movie is over and not pondering the consequences of that last shot, what it means for the movie, the franchise, and even their own lives! Scary! No, this movie just lays a big old fat egg. It's the epitome of the inconsequential film, the sort most will catch briefly while flipping channels, only the most unfortunate few sitting through it -- attentively -- from beginning to end.

Hey, you're pretty ugly to me, too, so there.

After nine months of difficult digging and no results, Sir Richard Turkel's (Lee) expedition has literally broken into success. A new entryway has been discovered, and it leads to a potential treasure trove of archaeological artifacts of great importance. Unfortunately, the team is horrifically killed upon entry, clearly the victims of some terrible ancient curse and not simple bad luck. Fast-forward to January of 1999. Turkel's daughter Samantha (Louise Lombard) is following in her father's footsteps, digging in the same spot and making use of advanced archaeological equipment, including biohazard suits, in an effort to stave off the unfortunate fate met by her father's team some years ago. The mission is both a success and failure: remains and artifacts are recovered, but one member of the team dies in the collection process. Now, the collection is the prized centerpiece at a London museum. Unfortunately, it goes missing, and the theft coincides with a new string of grisly murders. Enter Detective Riley (Jason Scott Lee), a street smart cop on the case and with an open mind, willing to accept that something supernatural might be at play. As the bodies mount, the ancient Egyptian Talos regains his humanoid shape as he harvests the pieces required to fully return to life.

At a very, very baseline level, Tale of the Mummy delivers adequately generic entertainment. It's the sort of movie perhaps best enjoyed in spurts. After all, it's not like a movie of this plot, style, or caliber really requires all that much from its audience. The movie is terribly straightforward and mostly predictable, leaving no real room or reason for the audience to engage the brain at any stage throughout the production. There's no mystery, no surprises when it comes to where the movie is going and who will play what role in the climax. Maybe it ends just a little bit differently from the norm, taking a slight risk, but really, it's all done so poorly that most viewers won't care who lives or dies or which side of the conflict comes out on top at the end, so any curveballs are really for naught and especially considering the goofy cliché of a final shot. Worse, the characters are so interchangeably generic that never does the audience become even the slightest bit attached to them. Neither does the audience come to care whether the day is saved and the problem resolved. It's a combination of a poor script and decidedly lethargic performances, neither helping the movie in any way and both pretty much doomed from the start.

Then there's just the problem of pacing. Is this thing ever slow. Tale of the Mummy begins promisingly enough (and it's so good, in fact, that the movie recaps everything that happened in its first eight minutes eight minutes into the movie), in large part because Christopher Lee manages to make the audience care about the story and his character more in five or six minutes than the rest of the cast combined in the rest of the runtime. It's a bad decision to kill off the best character in the opening minutes, particularly when the film is headed towards a bland police procedural with supernatural overtones, the same kind of thing that's been done before in movies like The Prophecy. But at least that movie featured demons as an enemy; here's it's swirling and whirling and twirling bandages and, late in the movie, a halfway rejuvenated ancient Egyptian thing that looks like the faun from Narnia mated with a gray alien. Worse, the movie's just never scary, never all that visually stimulating. The visual effects aren't half bad for a rather low budget clunker, but that's little praise for a scrapheap movie with hardly a pulse running through its body.

Tale of the Mummy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tale of the Mummy's Blu-ray transfer doesn't exactly impress, faring only marginally better than a generic up-converted DVD image. Echo Bridge's high definition transfer features unsurprisingly flat details, even in what should be a visually complex and rich dig site environment. Instead, pebbly and sandy terrain, wooden beams, and archaeological clothes fail to produce much in the way of complex detailing. On the plus side, the image retains a natural grain structure and suffers through only a handful of excessively soft shots, but never is this transfer absolutely razor-sharp. Colors are flat, uninspiring, and boring, whether the earthy dig site hues or brighter shades in the city. Blacks fluctuate between washed out and far too dark. This transfer also suffers through some difficult color transitions on faces, general background banding, light haloing, and a fair bit of print wear. It's clear this disc has been sourced from an older, mediocre print. Fans won't be thrilled, but it's not an abomination of a transfer, either.

Tale of the Mummy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tale of the Mummy's DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless sound is a tick or two above the usual Echo Bridge quality. This audio presentation enjoys good range, a strong sense of space, and nice surround usage throughout. The track's weakest moment comes at the beginning where a din of screaming and chanting people hardly sounds as clear, distinct, and natural as one might expect. However, the quietly deep rumblings inside the tomb play with a little more perceptible sense of space and accuracy. Music enjoys suitable clarity, a wide soundstage, and some surround usage, whether score or heavy dance beats playing at a club. Action scenes enjoy a fairly crisp and well-defined low-end rumble, evidenced in one earlier scene when a house is torn to bits. Swirling bandages easily maneuver through the listening area, flying through the back channels as they attempt to ensnare a victim. A few other distinct directional effects are to be enjoyed, and a scene featuring heavy rain and thunder nicely immerses the listener into the moment and environment. Dialogue is generally well-balanced up the middle and satisfyingly clear and precise. For an Echo Bridge soundtrack, this one's pretty good.

Tale of the Mummy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Tale of the Mummy contains only the film's trailer (HD, 1:15).

Tale of the Mummy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tale of the Mummy represents the classic inconsequential modern movie. The picture might be technically proficient and its special effects may not be terrible, but there's no rhythm, no perceptible heartbeat, no reason to watch. The story is unoriginal, the characters terribly bland, and the atmosphere hardly intoxicating. Christopher Lee's always worth watching, and his scenes early in the movie are the film's best. Why not tune in for those and pass on the rest? After all, who needs to sit through eighty more minutes for that goofy final clichéd shot? Echo Bridge's Blu-ray release of Tale of the Mummy features decent video and quality audio, but no meaty extras are included. Best to pass by this one.