For some reason I cannot seem to comprehend, truly great mummy-movies are extremely rare. The only really brilliant mummy film is the one from 1932 starring Boris Karloff, but all the others go from decent (Hammer's "The Mummy", dated 1959) over mediocre ("The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb", dated 1964) to downright lousy ("Dawn of the Mummy", dated 1981). The absolute low point was Stephen Sommers boisterous reworking of "The Mummy" in 1999, but that film regretfully became a huge success due to the irritating computer effects. "Talos the Mummy" is slightly better than Sommer's film, but that really isn't saying much. This surely isn't a terrible mummy-flick, but a little more coherence and logic would have been welcome! The story starts out promising enough, with a guest appearance from the almighty Christopher Lee who's up until his neck in filthy wrappings, ominous amulets and mysterious tombs again! He and some other greedy archaeologists open the grave of the ancient prince Talos and hereby unleash an unspeakable evil upon the world. This atmospheric intro is unquestionably the best part of the entire movie and the quality-level goes straight down right after the credits. Besides, don't consider watching it exclusively to see Christopher Lee, as his share is very limited...
The story then moves to present day, England, where the relics of Talos are exhibited in the fancy British Museum. Pretty soon, his "wrapping" escape and go on a killing spree in the streets of London. Talos' goal is to collect organs and body parts from foreigners, so that he can resurrect on the meteorological day when four planets are on one line...or something like that. Jason Scott Lee is the badly cast copper who has to protect princes-by-bloodline Louise Lombard from the extremely mean mummy... The whole legend and history behind the Talos character is quite interesting well thought out. He's a relentless and very malicious mummy and the aggressive murders he commits are fairly amusing. Too bad the film's structure is all messy and completely without tension. The computer-engineered special effects aren't very impressive, neither. The ending is truly horrible and swipes away that last bit of sympathy you still had for cast and crew. I could hardly even finish watching the finale....this has got to be one of the worst endings in horror-history. You've been warned...
The story then moves to present day, England, where the relics of Talos are exhibited in the fancy British Museum. Pretty soon, his "wrapping" escape and go on a killing spree in the streets of London. Talos' goal is to collect organs and body parts from foreigners, so that he can resurrect on the meteorological day when four planets are on one line...or something like that. Jason Scott Lee is the badly cast copper who has to protect princes-by-bloodline Louise Lombard from the extremely mean mummy... The whole legend and history behind the Talos character is quite interesting well thought out. He's a relentless and very malicious mummy and the aggressive murders he commits are fairly amusing. Too bad the film's structure is all messy and completely without tension. The computer-engineered special effects aren't very impressive, neither. The ending is truly horrible and swipes away that last bit of sympathy you still had for cast and crew. I could hardly even finish watching the finale....this has got to be one of the worst endings in horror-history. You've been warned...