The Weekly Planet - The Mummy 1999 - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: January 23, 2020

The Mummy 1999 is considered a classic action adventure film. Brendan Fraser, Rachael Weisz, John Hannah and a villainous Arnold Vosloo battle to get a book or read a book and so on etc. Anyways, does it hold up? This is our Caravan Of Garbage review. Thanks for watching. Or listening if you're doing that.SUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNVideo Edition ► https://youtu.be/KkLpqM7fbBgBuy The Mummy on Amazon ► https://amzn.to/2tBHeb6James' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownTWP Itunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4TWP Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetTWP YouTube Channel ► https://goo.gl/1ZQFGHPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4T-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-movies#TheMummy #TheMummy1999 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like when our estrogen levels drop during menopause, causing the risk of heart disease to go up. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret.

The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. As the Invisible Man attempts to reboot the Dark Universe again, let's look at the very first Dark Universe film, but not really because it's also a reboot of The Mummy from 1932. We're talking about The Mummy, 1999.

We came into this, we came into the room to record this, and I'm like, why are we doing this again? And I'm like, I assume it's because Universal Pictures, the owner of a bunch of pseudo public domain monster movies from back in the day. That they've run into the ground. They're attempting to do it again. They tried to do it with Dracula Untold.

They tried to do it with The Mummy 2017. They tried to do it with The Mummy, Tomb of the Emperor Dragon, which is the three equal to this. They tried it with The Scorpion King, the spinoff. They tried it with The Wolfman. They tried it with Br Scorpion King, the spin-off. They tried it with The Wolfman. They tried it with Bride of Frankenstein.

Anyway, I think The Invisible Man. They tried it with the creature from The Black Lagoon, and he runs a sandwich truck. You know? No one. It's just a lovable adventure. Some friends. But I think this movie, though, is the reason they keep trying this,

because this was a huge movie. It's part Indiana Jones, part yep part terminator part ray harry hausen all adventure mason here's the thing because this thing we do is called caravan of garbage and do people leave a like normally they absolutely do on caravan of garbage i thought whether they enjoyed the video or not they just do it all right just do it but i think maybe people are wondering why we're talking about the mummy and honestly this is one of the all-time greats like in terms of like fun action movies if you if this movie were never released, if this movie were put in all a vault, a tomb, if you will,

and it was released now, I think people would still enjoy it as an action movie. I agree. I think there's only a couple of things that would let it down this year. The visual effects have that sort of air of not quite there-ity. A lot of it's good. Some of it's like... But I think that was quite common in the mid to late 90s.

And speaking of not quite there-ity, Rachel Weisz's character has a serious case of turn-of-the-millennial eyebrows. I was going to say the exact same thing. They're practically non-existent. She is very lucky they grew back. Absolutely. You know a person's age by how thin their eyebrows are.

That's right. I'm surprised she wasn't wearing low-slung, flared jeans in that era. But anyway, this movie is very good. It's funny. Action-packed. Action-packed. Well, you mentioned Rachel Weisz. She's terrific.

Apparently she's the only one that was offered the role directly. Everybody else kind of had to audition. They went through a number of people. John Hanna's great. Apparently, if we're talking Rick O'Connell, our leading man, Brad Pitt was considered, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey. It was offered to Stallone. Tom Cruise also had a look in who ended up being in a Barbie movie anyway.

When he signed on to that one, he's like, this is going to be exactly the same as the old one, right? And they're like, yep. Can you do me hair as good as Brendan Fraser's hair from 1999 hair from 1999 you absolutely cannot top this hair but we'll try yes uh dicaprio was also offered the part and he wanted to do it but he was committed to the movie the beach uh where he was mostly sitting on a beach or running through a beach i like that movie i think it's i think it's underrated but i think what they did do then was go okay can we get brendan frazier then and just give him leonardo dicaprio's

titanic hair sure yeah brendan fraser is excellent yeah in this movie agreed yeah because i think i think a few people have pulled off this indiana jones-esque adventurer i think there's obviously harrison ford there's brendan fraser and nicholas cajun national treasure and national treasure two and national treasure three the tomb of the dragon emperor I think his hair lets him down in that one. I think Chris Pratt gets pretty close in Guardians of the Galaxy, but I think it's one of those things where they keep trying to do, and it's a very fine line between smug prick and confident and kind of a buffoon, and he manages to walk that line because he's not incredibly bright. There's a moment where he shoots the mummy with a shotgun, and then later he's like,

I got him, don't even worry about it. They're like, no, he's undead. And he's like, no. Like, there's a moment where he shoots the mummy with a shotgun, and then later he's like, I got him, don't even worry about it. And they're like, no, he's undead. And he's like, no, no, I got him. I shot him, don't worry about it. But this is also the 30s. Yeah, well, that's true. Pretty sure, you know. Well, mid-20s, I believe.

But then there's moments where he's like, oh, he doesn't like cats. And then he, you know, he uses that to his advantage. So, you know, he's not a complete dummy. He just takes a cat off his utility belt. Exactly. He's always a man who's got a cat ready. That's why people like him. They're all kind of terrible people. That's why a complete dummy. He just takes a cat off his utility belt. Exactly. He's always a man who's got a cat ready. That's why people like him. They're all kind of terrible people.

That's why you like it. That's why I like this movie is because all the characters, to one degree or another, are terrible people. Even like John Hanna's. He's a low-level scumbag. He should be in jail. With a veneer of being a gentleman. Yeah, absolutely.

And so there's an additional thrill of this movie of like, boy, I sure hope that they escape the clutches of the mummy, but at the same time, it'd be fine if they didn't. It's not a big deal, yeah. So I've just written this thought down, and I don't know why. Is it worth bringing up? I've written, I wonder what Imhotep would think of the movie Cats. Like, would it melt him?

Is that a topical current reference? Is that why it's in there? No, that's a good reference. I don't think he'd recognise any of the creatures on. Like, would it melt him? Is that a topical current reference? Is that why it's in there? No, that's a good reference. I don't think he'd recognise any of the creatures on screen as a cat. But, I mean, if you put him in that room, I think just the idea of a film would terrify him enough that he'd go on some sort of bloody rampage. Sure, yeah.

He'd turn into a big sand tornado. Probably best not risk resurrecting him again, I would say. Okay, to show the movie Cats. I had a question, though. You know how uh renan fraser is in the big cairo prison right yes there's a moment when they enter it and there's just a dude on a big wooden rat wheel just running okay not powering anything he's just sure no i looked i were around it he's just having a jog is it an exercise wheel is that what they've

put it in there for yeah that's interesting i don't know i mean maybe was that a common thing just a big wooden rat wheel that you had to be on so you went to the you went to the effort of researching whether the big rat wheel was in fact in the movie and whether it's connected to anything but you didn't do any research into egyptian prisons of the 20s to see if that was a common exercise technique for the prisoners look if somebody could do that research and talk about it below i'd really appreciate it because now that I think about it, maybe it's something I should have looked into if I was going to bring it up. Oh, God, I hope we get an email from a guy

and he's like, I exclusively researched Egyptian prisons in the 20s and I want to be clear, this is the most accurate representation I've ever seen on film. I live in despair every day because there's never been a better one. It's a wheel to nowhere.

Why did they build it? I don't know. Anyway, apparently also he was hung for real in that scene it had to be revived that also happened to me yeah that happened to michael j fox in back to the future 3 where they just accidentally hanging people on set like i think it was a thing that just used to happen sometimes yeah because normally there's like a fake brace that they put them in but yeah i don't know maybe you know what maybe that's's actor's hubris. They're like, hey, you'll be fine in this, right?

And they're like, yeah, sure, I'll be fine. I'm a tough guy. I worked on my abs, I worked on my neck. That's right. Well, Brendan Fraser has even said more recently that these films kind of ruined his body doing these stunts. Like he's got permanent injury and by the third Mummy film he was just held together by like tape and ice. And if you see him in that movie, like he's in good shape. Yeah, right. But he's got permanent injury and by the third Mummy film he was just held together by like tape and ice.

If you see him in that movie, like he's in good shape but he's broken. Well I mean that's you know, we're in that era where the whole deal with movies now is you just get a funny guy, you work him to the bone and give him abs. That's right. And that's not sustainable. That's insanity. I agree. I say, having not worked

on my abs at all. It's insane though. Yeah. I agree. That's the thread, having not worked on my abs at all. It's insane, though. Yeah. I agree. That's the thread that I'm holding onto and not hanging myself with. I also enjoy the snivelly villain in this played by Kevin J. O'Connor, Benny. Yeah. I like the moment where he's like, hey, O'Connor, nice camel. And then you see later that he's also on a camel.

So I don't know whether that's a mistake or not, but I just like the fact that he's just looking for anything to make fun of him about. He's like, nice camel, slightly worse than my camel maybe well again if if you'd done your research you would know that there was some very very subtle but important distinctions between the two camels if we could get an email camel expert a camel expert from 1926 well exactly they have you know breeding has has shortened their legs significantly their humps are on the bottom now, you know. What?

It's like corgis, you know. Oh, God. They've done it all wrong. They used to be a noble beast and now they're just a... You know? Sure. They're all backwards, yeah. Quick question.

Why would you give Imhotep, the high priest, a super weird, super involved curse that means he can definitely come back from the dead and reap revenge. Knowing that if he did return, he'd arise a walking disease, a plague upon all mankind. In addition to being an unholy flesh eater with the strength of the ages, with the power over sands and the glory of invincibility. Why would you chance any of that is what I'm saying. Why wouldn't you just cut his throat and just put him in a bin? Well, first of all, that does sound very appealing.

But second of all, you get to do the prank. The prank of? You wrap the guy up like a mummy. Yeah. And then you're like, hey, don't worry, we're going to get you out of this. It's just funny. I mean, we've already cut your tongue off. Pretty funny.

Yeah. It's pretty funny. And then you stick him in the sarcophagus and you fill him with flesh-eating beetles. How funny is that? You know what I mean? You don't think to the future. You think. You think of the future, you think.

Yeah, that's a really good point. Also, they're not going to be around, are they? Because they don't have the undead curse. So apparently there is an explanation behind those scarab beetles, you know, that are quite quick and they're everywhere and they're flesh eating. Apparently because they're in the coffin with him, they eat him and he eats them and it's just this eternal kind of cyclical

thing. It's not mentioned in the movie, but that is the explanation. And that's when one like crawls into his face. He just eats it like it's like a piece of popcorn. Okay, right. Because it's just like a snack to him after being trapped for thousands of years. He's like, yeah, there's no big deal, mate. I was going to say it's like some sort of massive sea creature, like a whale or something. And it's got like barnacles or like krill on it or something like that.

But it's more like if you ate a cereal and the cereal also ate you. Yes, that's exactly what it's like. So it does make sense. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. You mentioned the groundbreaking ILM special effects. There's things like the giant sand face. It's a bit chonky like nowadays, but for the time, they sold it on that.

They were like, check out this giant sand face. So I think it still holds up for the most part. But then there's moments where like Brendan Fraser has to fight a whole lot of – is it Fraser? Like, Freight? It's not. It's not. But where he has to fight a whole lot of mummies,

and he does this kind of balletic kind of sweep where the camera moves around him, and he's kicking him, and he's cutting him. Was this pre- or post-The Matrix? Because it's the same year. Same year. Well, they wouldn't have known, actually. Yeah, yeah. But in that –

It was just in the zeitgeist. It was in the zeitgeist. Just having a bunch of cameras around him. Yeah, having a known exactly yeah yeah but in that was just in the zeitgeist in the zeitgeist having a bunch of cameras around yeah having a bunch of cameras around yeah that was in the zeitgeist but if you look at the behind the scenes stuff and it's pretty obvious when you look at it none of those people or mummies are actually there and he's just swinging madly at nobody in the behind the scenes but it's quite funny yeah yeah it's a very clear case of yeah yeah, we'll fix it later. Yeah, exactly. Just do some swinging and we'll sort it. So the villain, played by Darkman 2's own... Arnold Vosloo. That's right. So the villain in this, though, it's mentioned multiple times

in the behind the scenes by the director and others that, look, we don't just want some shuffly bandage, man, we want real cool CGI stuff happening. If you watch the behind the scenes, it's just them saying that again and again. Also, if you want behind the scenes where it's just people talking about muscles shifting under skin in CGI representations of human people, then there's about a 30-minute section on that. And it's, I mean, it's incredible, but fuck me, it's boring.

I admire the work, but like, phew. You say that, but we're going to get an email from a guy who's like, well, personally, I studied muscle movements solely in Egyptians in the 1920s. And let me tell you, actually, this one was quite inaccurate. So I don't know what to say. First of all, George Romero wanted to make this movie during the 90s,

and he was going to have a more horror-style version with a more horrific mummy. And because this is PG-13, they tried to walk that line between he's horrific and you can kind of see through him and some of his organs and some of his skin and he slowly regenerates but he's it's never like bloody or messy in a way dusty yeah it's more dusty it's more like like kindling yeah but i think overall i think the effect works really well and for a mostly entirely cgi component for a lot of this i think that the

detail in it still holds up except for the bit where he goes into the water at the end he goes doesn't that doesn't look that good, does it? But I mean, they've never perfected that, have they? I think they have. I mean, they did it in the- Thumbs down to this movie there. Yeah, big old thumbs down. So you would not be surprised by this,

but there's been a number of spinoffs and tie-ins and sequels and the like. And I'm going to run you through some of them. You, of course, remember that we looked at the video game adaptation of this. Oh my God. Here's a clip. One of the worst things we've ever looked at. Is that inaccurate? Is that the one with a weird Rick O'Connell head?

Yes. He's like a block and his head's been pasted on it. Yeah, okay. That's exactly what it is. Yeah, I remember that one. Yeah, that's awful. It's like a two-rated knockoff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But also, there are a number of sequels. Stephen Summers, who directed this, Universal phoned him the morning after this movie was released and they're like, we need another one, which ended up being The Mummy Returns. There's also the spin-off The Scorpion King and then the spin-offs from The Scorpion King that aren't starring The Rock. There's the third one, obviously. There's the animated series. Exsqueeze Me?

Exsqueeze Me, yes. Never even heard of that. That's right. The Mummy 2017 might also be in the same universe because... Mummies. Because mummies, obviously. But also The Book is in that. Oh, the beautiful golden book. The beautiful golden book. Or the other book. one of them's because mommy's obviously but also the book is in that oh the beautiful golden beautiful golden book or the other book one of the books

i'm not watching the mummy again all right i buy uh and also brendan fraser also turns up in gi joe which was also directed by stephen summers oh okay and he's mentioned kind of look loosely in canon let's just say that he's a descendant of rick o'connell and he does say look i know you're fighting cobras but watch out for the mummy 1999 that's what he says yeah exactly so i just think it's really interesting that this universe it's spun off so much just from this one blockbuster that just really took off and has never quite been replicated i don't mind the mummy returns i wouldn't mind coming back and looking at it for this. Let us know if you want us to. Boy, there's some ropey Scorpion King CGI in that movie, let me tell you.

But I think a lot of the elements from that movie are just directly kind of brought back. They're like, oh, Imhotep's back and he's sort of a big sand face, he's a water face, et cetera, and so forth. Yeah, sure. It's all of that. And I like the idea behind the third one that they're going to China and it's the Terracotta Warriors and it's a whole different kind of lore behind it teenage mutant ninja turtles 3 syndrome exactly as in it's not a good movie regardless of but we're going to Asia yeah yeah but we're going to Asia look all

in all I think look it's definitely of its time but it is that kind of gem that mostly holds up I think so yeah yeah like we said there's elements of it that you know it's clearly dated because it's a 20 year plus old movie but again it's a movie about an egyptian mummy coming back to life and killer scarab beetles yes if you can hold on to that suspicion of disbelief for that you can probably hold on to it for some of the cgi doesn't look so great yeah exactly because that's not what i feel is driving the movie i think it's what got people into theaters but it's not what makes it still interesting because otherwise people would be talking about wild wild west because that had cgi too didn't it no one remembers giant remember the song about the giant metal spider yeah giant metal spider we'll probably never cover that for this because they're

never doing another one of those are we are they they're never doing another wild wild west i mean never say never never say never i guess you're probably right i'm curious though and i'm throwing this out to you specifically would you like to see a sequel to this? Returning cast members. Yes. Bearing in mind, Rachel Weisz didn't come back for the third one. Oh. But do you think.

She's doing Marvel movies now, you know. She'd definitely come back. Yeah. But do you think it would play now? Do you think everybody's too old? Do you think she's willing to pluck her eyebrows to the same level? No, I don't think she would. Definitely not.

I don't think so. I don't even think she'd do the second one yeah there you go yeah anyway would you would you see a sequel though absolutely i would do you think it would work i don't know because i don't think it would no so that's the thing i think it'd be very much indiana jones 4 kind of syndrome the difference being the first three of those movies are good yeah also yeah i don't know look i mean i would very much like to just on the back of the movie the one movie but given the huge number number of spin-offs you've mentioned, all of which are bad.

Yes. Then I don't hold out much hope for it. Hey, anything could be good. Anything could be good. And do people want to see it? You know, you never know, do you? That's so true. But generally things aren't good, are they?

I'll watch a thing with Brendan Fraser in it. Me too. Anyways, this has been Caravan of Garbage. We do this every week. If you do have a suggestion, please hit us up. I know we did a poll on Patreon to see what other Dark Universe movies do people want us to look at. It seems we've got a definitive answer on that. I'm not happy about it, but that one's coming up.

But in regards to what's coming next week, here's a hint. Oh. Hmm. Oh. I can't say it. I don't know what it is either. We don't know. It might be Star Wars Clone Wars. I don't know I can't say it. I don't know what it is either. We don't know. It might be Star Wars Clone Wars.

I don't know. Oh. I don't know though. I don't know. Oh yeah, cool. This is extended audio shit. This is what people pay top dollar for. This kind of content that I leave here.

They pay one dollar. One top. No, I think this also goes out to everybody. Oh, then they pay zero dollars. They pay zero dollars. Yeah. Anyway, subscribe if you want for any of that. Because there are videos here every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

And of course, we have a podcast called The Weekly Planet where we talk movies and comics and TV shows that comes out every Monday. And that's all the things that I have to say. Incredible. You've done it again. I think I have, haven't I? Bless you.

Namaste. Goodbye. Grabbed our jam, you guys. We'll see you next week. Namaste. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetb planet broadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates i mean if you want it's up to you

fx is the veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+.