Name: Spotlight on Location: The Mummy Returns
Genre: Documentary, Short
Released: 2001-10-02
Duration: 20 min
Rating: 6.8
Cast: Stephen Sommers, Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz

This is the only real documentary on the bonus disc of The Mummy Returns DVD set and it's nothing more than the usual promotional fluff. Everybody in the cast and crew talk enthusiastically about how much bigger and better this sequel is going to be. Arnold 'The Mummy Himself' Vosloo also describes the sequel as 'more hellacious', whatever that may be. Writer/director Stephen Sommers claims the key to a good second part is to get the cast back. Elsewhere, on his audio commentary, Sommers boasts that he got 8 of the original cast members to return, some of whom (Patricia Velasquez) got their parts greatly expanded. Personally, I only counted seven, but I could easily have missed one of course. Stephen must have kicked himself in the pants for being unable to bring back his favorite weaselly actor Kevin J. O'Connor (not even as one of the undead).

So, we get the customary roll call of the reunited cast, all of whom have nothing but praise for their hyperactive writer/director (who never sits down!). Vosloo calls him the real star of the Mummy. Rachel Weisz thinks her character has become hooked on adrenaline since the last one. The Brendan Fraser (as he liked to refer to himself according to the MTV Movie Awards of that year) explains that this movie is set ten years after the start of the first Mummy, in 1933, and Rick and Evie now have a 9 year old son (Freddy Boath). Yet according to the first films time line, the pair of them didn't meet until 3 years after the start of the film, so what's going on there? It then turns out the plot of TMR revolves around the old kidnapped kid plot device. That trick's about as ancient as the mummy's bandages.

Probably the most misleading segment of all is when they imply that The Rock, in his motion picture picture debut, was going to be a a major villain in the picture instead of showing up for 5 minutes only to wet the public apatite for his own spin-off. The last quarter of this 20 minute Spotlight on Location is devoted to the special effects, overseen on location by John Berton, who is the ultimate embodiment of a computer nerd. Still, he doesn't look totally out of place in the Saharah desert, resembling as he does a desert rat (or maybe a Womp rat since he's from from Industrial Light and Magic). You can always tell when a documentary like this is coming to an end when the music starts getting louder, the interview clips shorter and the scenes from the film more and more frantic. I might even be tempted to describe the final combination of trailer-shots as 'hellacious'.

7 out of 10

The documentary is a form of non-fiction storytelling that aims to present factual information, insights, and perspectives on real-world subjects, events, issues, or people. Documentaries can cover a wide range of topics, including history, science, culture, social issues, nature, biographies, and more.

Dziga Vertov in Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

The short form refers to creative works characterized by their brevity and concise storytelling. Unlike full-length feature films, short films have a running time of less than 45 minutes, while TV shorts have a running time of less than 22 minutes.

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Bonus feature with interviews with the cast and crew of The Mummy Returns (2001)

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Spotlight on Location: The Mummy Returns

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