On my recent annual re-watch of The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser, as Rick O’Connell, I thought for the first time more deeply about the Egyptian culture and myth surrounding the plot of the movie. Despite the subpar visual effects of the movie, it has managed to capture audiences for the past 25 years, and has no doubt reached the status of cult classic. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past quarter-century, or it’s just been a while since you’ve seen the film, I will detail the plot, so you aren’t entirely lost.
The plot of the story begins with the high priest Imhotep in the year 1290 BC, when he has an affair with the Pharoah’s mistress Anck-su-namun. When the pharaoh discovers them, Imhotep escapes while Anck-su-namun commits suicide. Through a somewhat long-winded series of events following, Imhotep is cursed and buried alive with flesh-eating scarabs. The medjai, a nomadic warrior group, are tasked with protecting his tomb so he may never rise again and unveil evil upon the world. Spooky.
Unfortunately, Brendan Fraser just couldn’t keep his hands off Imhotep’s tomb. After 3,216 years, he and his friends just HAD to open and read from the Book of the Dead. It’s okay, though. We can’t hate Rick, can we? How was he supposed to know that his greed would be the death of several of his friends? I mean just look at him. Despite his hair color, he truly encapsulates the innocent, if somewhat ignorant, blonde stereotype, even more than Indiana Jones himself I would say.
Brendan Fraser is the epitome of the perfect action-adventure movie hero in this role To prove this, though, the question must first be asked: what qualities make up a hero? Armaan Uplekar, a writer for International Screenwriters’ Association, gives five important traits to define a good action hero: leadership, courage, caring, resilience, and self-sacrifice. These qualities are essential to any action-adventure hero because of their distance from our own humanistic qualities; they are what we strive to be. But more on that later. First, though, because I need to get this to two pages, I am going to give examples of Brendan Fraser displaying all these traits.
First up on our list is leadership. There are many moments of leadership from Brendan Fraser throughout the film, but the one that sticks out to me the most is the scene in the museum, where despite the threat of imminent danger lurking in the form of zombified civilians serving Imhotep (long story), he does not cease to take charge of the situation to help protect his friends.
A bold move, I know, to compare Brendan Fraser in The Mummy to Harrison FOrd in Indiana Jones. In so few words, there is no way I could possibly fully articulate this point. But I will try.
Resilience, or the perseverance to continue when things are tough, is the fourth quality of a good action-adventure hero. This is especially evident throughout the film, as Brendan Fraser’s character and crew consistently face new increasing challenges, yet he is never one to call it quits. Unfazed by the deaths of many of his allies, he never ceases to keep on progressing through the movie, always focused on the goal he has at the moment. The final quality listed of a good action-adventure hero is self-sacrifice, which is admittedly tougher to showcase for Brendan Fraser in The Mummy, as he always seems to turn out okay, despite the harrowing journey he faces. I will say, however, that Brendan Fraser in The Mummy was entirely willing to put his life on the line every single time to protect his friends and allies. If that’s not a willingness for sacrifice, I don’t know what is.
Next is the quality of courage. To see a great example of this from Brendan Fraser’s character, one needs to look no further than the climactic fight of the movie. In this scene, Imhotep brings his guards back to life, who were mummified with him 3,000 years prior. I would say, as would most I assume, that fighting a bunch of scary mummies with big swords and shields, armed only with your wits and athletic prowess, is pretty courageous. This battle seemingly barely fazes Brendan Fraser, despite several close calls with death. The next quality is caring. All one needs to do to see this displayed is to examine the relationship between him and co-star Rachel Weisz. It is quite evident that his devotion to this love interest is a main driver of his actions throughout the plot. It is through his care for her, despite being a stranger to him for most of the movie, that he assists her in finding the Book of the Dead in the first place.
Further than these given characteristics, Brendan Fraser’s pure charisma is a primary reason that he is so memorable as a protagonist. Much akin to the likes of Indiana Jones, his snappy one-liners and comebacks play to his audience draw just as much as his objectively perfect-looking face, although I am sure I did not have to point that out for you to notice. Also, there is definitely an appeal to the somewhat idiocy of Brendan Fraser in The Mummy, one which I believe stems from his ability to play into the tropes of the film. Put simply, Brendan Fraser is here, and Brendan Fraser is ready to play.
Personally, I would even go so far as to say that The Mummy is a masterpiece of a film. Possibly the best adventure flick of the 20th century. Beyond the extravagance of charisma displayed in Brendan Fraser, in my opinion, it has the most fascinating plot of an adventure movie of the past century. This stems from the movie’s ability to be larger than life. As I mentioned specifically with Brendan Fraser’s persona, this quality of the movie is relevant to every single aspect of it: the rest of the characters, the mythology surrounding the plot, the scope of the action sequences, the villain himself. In this way, The Mummy reigns supreme even to the likes of Indiana Jones, in which the haunting reality of facing Nazis as villains brings down any status of adventure it may have. The ability of The Mummy to separate itself entirely from reality means it can attract an audience which does not wish to engage further with their own reality,-at least for a little while...and that is what makes it an even more beautiful piece of entertainment.
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