The Mummy is definitely not a great film from an objective standpoint; there are an awful lot of plot holes and things that don't make a great deal of sense, and the characters often do things for no other reason than that the plot dictates they must. Still, Stephen Sommers hits the perfect balance of epic adventure, humor, and thrills to make the quintessential popcorn movie. The Mummy is sort of like those old creature features you used to stay up and watch on late night television, except that it's actually fun and silly and doesn't take itself seriously whatsoever.
The cast is perfect, the photography is gorgeous (particularly in the desert sequences), the jokes are, if not hilarious, at least harmless enough, the special effects are decent but limited by the technology of the time, and the music is pretty good. This is a movie that knows what it's trying to do and achieves it perfectly. Too bad Sommers hasn't yet replicated the experience in his more recent duds.
The cast is perfect, the photography is gorgeous (particularly in the desert sequences), the jokes are, if not hilarious, at least harmless enough, the special effects are decent but limited by the technology of the time, and the music is pretty good. This is a movie that knows what it's trying to do and achieves it perfectly. Too bad Sommers hasn't yet replicated the experience in his more recent duds.