At one time I was pretty jazzed on the idea of a MUMMY remake, especialy since gore-god George Romero was slated to direct an adaptation. But with Brendan Frasier – filmdom's ENCINO MAN, GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE and DUDLEY DO-RIGHT – starring as the intrepid explorer who stumbles upon the Egyptian City of the Dead, I was a tad less psyched about the concept. Come on, we've all seen the interviews with this lumox. Yeah, he might look good, but I’m not sure he could string together two coherent sentences without a screenwriter behind him!

But, with THE PHANTOM ANUS weighing heavily on my mind, I was more than happy to try anything to drive that rancid stench from my brain. Oh yeah, I also wanted to get advanced tix for AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME, but that's beside the point.

Much to my surprise, Stephen Sommers' THE MUMMY is exactly the kind of 90s updating that the classic Universal monsters are desperately in need of. Sure, purists might be turned off by Arnold Vosloo (DARKMAN 2 & 3, the underrated DIARY OF A SERIAL KILLER, HARD TARGET) as the sand-commanding, plague-bringing, chick-chasing, organ-sucking Imhotep, but this flick fan downright LOVED IT!

Packing 217% (and that’s an official count) more story into its running time than the dreadful PHANTOM AUDIENCE, THE MUMMY delivers everything we've longed for in a summer flick since Indy rolled a bag of sand onto the temple altar in the original RAIDERS: a bold, quick-witted hero; unctious villains you know would embrace facism in a heartbeat; a spunky heroine; and comedic sidekicks that actually don't wear out their welcome. Take THAT George Lucas!

Discussing the plot of THE MUMMY would be useless and beside the point. Readers of this site know the deal. All I can say is that THE MUMMY rocks, bringing us the best horror-fantasy flick since Sam Raimi's EVIL DEAD 3: ARMY OF DARKNESS.

Run, don't walk, to this flick...and check your brain at the door for maximum enjoyment.