So far, what we know about the planned Mummy 3: Even Mummier (ok, we made that bit up) can be squeezed onto the back of a postage stamp: it’s due out in 2008, Rob Cohen, and not the franchise creator Stephen Sommers, will direct, and it’s a very, very bad idea.
Still, Sommers’ original is a rollicking good time, while enough guilty pleasure moments are smattered through The Mummy Returns to make it worth a watch if you happen to catch it halfway through while flicking through TV channels. But for Mummy 3 to even register on Empire’s patented Excitement-o-meter (basically a chalkboard with a bit of string), news of its storyline, for example, is going to have to blow us away.
Ah. Because news has reached us, courtesy of those boffins at Sci-Fi Wire, that Al Gough, who has assumed co-screenwriting duties with Miles Millar on the Universal flick, has been wittering on about the film’s proposed storyline – and we’re not blown away. Truth be told, we haven’t even rocked backwards slightly.
“We figured out a really good family story with Rick and Evie, and Alex is now grown up,” said Gough. Rick and Evie are, of course, the characters played in the first two by Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, while Alex was their young son, who was introduced in The Mummy Returns and proceeded to drag proceedings down with Cute Hollywood Bratitis. “So it's really interesting,” concluded Gough, patting himself vigorously on the back.
Well, that’s for us to decide, young man. And we’re not overly fussed about this. For starters, if, as Gough hints, the new movie is going to unleash a new Mummy – what, no love for Arnold Vosloo’s Imhotep? – then there’s absolutely no need to cram Rick and Evie into the story (charming though Fraser and Weisz were), much less their son, who was a particularly ill-conceived plot device in the first place.
Further questions are raised by this nugget: if Alex is all grown up, how old is he? Early teens? Late teens? Is he the same age now as Fraser’s Rick was in the original Mummy? Does this mean that Fraser and Weisz – both of whom are in talks to reprise their roles (now we’re not their agents, but here’s some advice for free: don’t. Do. It.) - are going to be hobbling around on crutches with poor old age make-up slathered all over their kissers? Will they take a back seat to the new young buck?
Like we said, maybe the answers will be clever, original and will change our mind on the film. But we still say that all involved should just forget about it, and walk away, leaving us to cherish happier times… if, for no reason other than this: since The Mummy 3 was announced for Summer 2008, Indiana Jones IV has also sprung dramatically to life and will open in that same period. Let's put it this way: if Pink Floyd reformed and played Wembley Arena, you wouldn't want to go and see the Australian Pink Floyd playing at a half-empty pub next door, would you?