The heavily hyped, heavily budgeted, and action packed sequel to The Mummy has finally arrived, and it certainly delivers on its promise- MORE. If something was done in the original, the sequel stacks on to it.

The original had a giant sand tornado with the face of Imhotep in it attempting to swallow our heroes while they flew a biplane, the sequel has a giant tidal wave with the face of Imhotep attempting to swallow our heroes in a blimp. The original had 874,387,576 scarabs, the sequel has twice that.

Oh yeah, it has mummified monkey creatures too! You can't beat that. Every sequence is an attempt to out-do the action sequences from the original, and you've got to admire the film for staying true to its roots.

I liked the original picture myself. I always found it to be charming in the same way as Army Of Darkness is. It's hard to bash this movie or it's originator, as neither ever begin to take themselves seriously for an extended period of time. That's just not how they're meant to be taken.

The Mummy provided lots of action with a side-order of humor, and I went into the sequel hoping for more of the same, not a groundbreaking cinematic event. Was I dissapointed? Read on to find out the answer to that mysterious question.

Heed this note: There are a few minor spoilers from the film in here, but only from the first five minutes of the film. If even that's enough to get you miffed, I suggest you skip the next two paragraphs.

From the get go I'll just tell you: If you're going to see this movie solely for The Rock, don't bother. I sincerely hope no one is going to see it just for that sole purpose, but if they are planning to, I emplore them to not do so.

The Rock appears VERY BRIEFLY in this film, as in "Get up to go to the bathroom and you'll miss his entire part" brief. The Rock is only in the prologue of the film to establish the plot that will drive the movie foward for the next two hours, and nothing more. You'll have to wait until The Scorpion King to see more of him.

Anyways, the story begins back in ancient Egypt (suprise), with the Scorpion King attempting to seige an Egyptian city with his massive army and take over the world. A titanic battle ensues from which The Scorpion King and his army will not emerge successful. The Scorpion King and his men are banished to the farthest outreaches of the desert, where all of them but the mighty king himself perish from the burning sands.

With his dying breath, the king makes a plea to Anubis to spare his life and help him destroy his foes. In exchange for his mercy, the king offers to make himself Anubis' slave after he extracts his revenge. Anubis accepts the offer, and before the king appears a mighty oasis. Anubis gives the Scorpion King control of the underworld army, and with them the king seiges and destroys the very army that destroyed him and his army.

Afterwards, the king is returned to the underworld to serve Anubis, and the armies dissolve into dust. The bracelet of Anubis, which the Scorpion King wore, is the only artifact that remains in the destroyed city.

Fast foward to 1933. The O'Connell family (Rick, his now wife Evelyn, and their son Alex) are exploring yet another dank tomb. They unwittingly stumble upon the chest containing the bracelet of Anubis, which has the power to show the way to the lost oasis which Anubis made appear before the Scorpion King.

Meanwhile, there are others who seek to use this bracelet to gain ultimate power by resurrecting Imhotep and forcing him to do battle with the Scorpion King, who is said to raise from the dead every 5,000 years, for whomever defeats the Scorpion King in battle gains ultimate power.

When Alex unwittingly attaches the necklace to himself, all three O'Connells are thrust into an adventure that will pit them against otherworldly beings and powerful gods, much to Rick's chargrin.

This is the basic summary of the plot that will drive the entire movie for the entire duration. There are VERY few twists in this plot, and sometimes it starts to wear thin. When one hero gets kidnapped, and then another kidnapped after the first one being rescued, it's hard to keep interested.

The first half of the movie is simply Rick chasing after whichever member of his family has been kidnapped, rescuing them, and then running off to save another. Luckily, Rick can't catch the kidnappers after one such kidnapping, and the whole back and forth kidnapping ends for a while.

The movie then evolves into a long, drawn out chase that ultimately ends towards the end of the movie. Eyes on the prize, I suppose. It's obvious where the budget on this movie went- the effects. You can barely go two minutes without seeing some form of CGI, and it's a lucky thing that this movie isn't a serious picture, otherwise the CGI would really annoy me.

CGI just always looks like CGI. That sounds really stupid, but the same thing can be said for claymation as well. It just looks cheesy at some points. The CGI often takes center stage over the actors, but the dialogue in this one isn't so captivating that I really mind the distraction.

My favorite thing about this sequel was the beefing up of the comic relief. Evee's brother is back to provide us with some, and suprisingly enough, the O'Connells' son Alex also provides many humorous moments.

I was shocked to see how entertaining the kid could be. After seeing Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace, I am always wary of the child actor. Thankfully, the child who plays Alex can ACT, and instead of being teeth-grindingly unbearable to listen to is a joy to see. Whenever Alex and Evelyn's brother left the scene, I was already wishing for them to be back.

Rick is back in full form as usual. Rick always seems as if he's a combination of Indiana Jones and Ash, as he has the whole unwilling hero aspect of Ash and the swagger of Indiana. He even borrows the trademark "I've got a bad feeling about this" from our very own Dr. Jones.

The entire film seems to be Indiana Jones light, with the characters questing over an ancient treasure and having many "swashbuckling" adventures along the way. If you take the time to listen to the soundtrack, you'll see that even the music sounds Indiana Jonesish.

The fight scenes, which almost compose the entire movie (About 2/4ths of it, the other quarters being egyptian mysticism ramblings and Rick and Evelyn kissing), are lavishly done. Don't expect beautiful fights like those in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which I doubt I'll ever see topped), these fights aren't beautiful and enchanting fights of honor, they're full blown frantic combat.

The camera pans quickly around the battlefields, trying frantically to capture all the action in vain. It's difficult to take in what's happening due to how fast things happen. The entire movie is very fast paced, and makes for greatly entertaining scenes, much better than the one-on-one combat portions.

All these battles culminate in one final showdown between Rick, Imhotep, and the Scorpion King. This fight involves much more running than combat, and in turn becomes semi-unclimatic.

The final battle left me wishing for something more. The movie has a decent, if indefinate ending that closes the story up well, but leaves a few questions unanswered about the past, which will undoubtedly be answered in The Scorpion King picture.

Stick to the wall Shortround..er..Alex.

All in all, The Mummy Returns ultimately succeeds in it's one true intention: the provide more excitement, thrills, and humor than the original. If you're a fan of the original, you'll surely love this further expansion of the O'Connell adventure, and even if you didn't like the original, this movie is definately the best new release out there at the time.

If you'd rather see Driven than this, there's just no helping you. The Mummy Returns is definately worth your dough if you're craving a new action flick this summer.