July 3, 2024 • 43 mins
While the 1999 action-adventure classic The Mummy might not top a lot of feminist movie lists, that didn't stop us from finding some feminist elements in it (and due to Samantha's insistence, The Mummy Returns) to talk about. Come along on this sometimes terribly CGI-ed adventure as we discuss the feminism of these movies and the iconic heroine Evie in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I want to put
his stuff. I never told you affliction if I heard you.
And today we are bringing back another fun one. It
is the twenty fifth anniversary of the Mummy, and it
(00:26):
was in theaters briefly.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I wanted to go see it, but I think I
missed the window.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
But as you know, listeners, I hope we did a
feminist newbe Friday on that and the Mummy returns.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I don't think you watched that third one.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I've been seeing so much conversation about it and why
people love it and uh, and I've heard there's talk
of bringing back the Mummy and making a new one.
I don't know if it's been confirmed, but I've to
love chatter about it. So we shall have to see.
(01:04):
But in the meantime, please enjoy this classic episode. Hey,
this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephano Never
Told You production of iHeartRadio. It is time for another
(01:29):
feminist movie Friday, the first of twenty twenty one. Yeah, yes,
and we're starting it with one of my absolute favorite
movies of all time, the nineteen ninety nine classic The Mummy.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
The Mummy and by Samantha's insistence.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
The Mummy too, Philia has to be there.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
According to you, you're very very passionate about it. Yes,
and the Mummy was a listener suggestion, So thank you, Kayla.
I always love when listeners suggests something that I love anyway,
So it's like I get to just.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Rewatch something that I already really enjoy.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And she sent us a link to a blog post
by Lena in a Red Dress that was really helpful.
In all of this made a lot of great points
about the kind of feminist take on this movie. We'll
be getting into that later. Also, I recently ish watched
this with coworker and friend Lauren Vogelbaum, and we kept
saying how much Rachel Advice's character still holds up.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
We kept being like, wow, like that, Yeah, I feel
like unlike a lot of the movies or TV that
we watched from twenty years ago, twenty years ago, I
know it doesn't hold up and you kind of squirm
and have to accept that it was made back when
even though it shouldn't have been made back when, And
this one doesn't do that as much. So you were
(02:49):
like okay, or cool, woor cool, although the second one
a little less held a little less. We'll say that.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, well, I absolutely adore The Mummy. It's one of
six movies that I can quote the whole way through
the Egyptian in all which I have no idea if
that's actually Egyptian, but I can say it similarly.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
To how they say it to the movie.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
And I remember I had to campaign really hard to
see this movie in theaters as my dad because he's like,
I think it might scare you, and I don't know.
I was at the age where it still my parents
would go with me to PG thirteen movies, and I
just I worked so hard convince him, and then I
was trying really really hard to hide how scared I
(03:36):
was because he was right. The Beatles, the scare of
Beatles really scared me. And I think I had a
crush on pretty much half the people in this movie
at one point in time. And I love the ride
at Universal. It is so fun. That is a good ride.
I hope they don't take it down because it's funny.
It's like about the making of the movie right, And
I'm not sure how much like the younger generation gets it.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
But right right, And it's definitely old Brendan Fraser too.
It's definitely way back when Brendan Fraser, right, because when
you see him today looks a little different. Has gone
through a lot of stuff, unfortunately, or dude, and it's
trying to come out of it on the other side.
But it's definitely taking him a minute. I don't know
how else to do this, So it was prime Brendan Fraser.
(04:20):
I will say that, although I will say he was
one of my first Prussis not because of this movie,
but because of movies like in Sino Man and School Ties.
Those two movies are the one things that made him
for me.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
That's so great.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Oh yeah, I've never seen any of those, but I
know the image like on the cover.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
So oh yeah. In Sino Man, my friend and I
in high school we memorized that movie. We know all
of everything to do with that movie. We even got
the soundtrack to that movie. Yeah, we were really into it.
Oh wow, Oh yes, wow. I know I've spoken before
about my my New Year's tradition on this show, where
(05:00):
I very specifically choose the last movie I want to
end a year on in the first movie I want
to start the New year on, and a couple of
years ago. I was in South Africa for work over
New Years and the last movie I saw was.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
The New Mummy with Tom Cruise on the plane. Oh no,
it was not good. It was bad, bad, bad, bad
movie to go out on. So when I got home,
the first movie I watched the New Year was the
nineteen ninety nine versions for it.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Never had a desire to see the Tom Cruise version
because I was like, what is this. I trying to
make something that was like, yes, action filled, but also
fun to just action watch Tom Cruise get hurt and
hurt things. Okay, cool?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah, And I mean the ending was pretty weird too,
because they were trying to set up that whole like
the new Universal Monster series. So it's like, clearly meant
to be a series, but you just knew it probably
wasn't gonna happen, so what fuff?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, and also when The Mummy too, the Mummy return
and so I keep taking yeah, mommy returns, let me
get it correct. But when that came out that there
was this website for the movie, which I actually after
we watched You've Got Mail, I got really into that
for a minute, remembering those like old remember when movies
would come out, they would have these like websites and
you can play games on them and stuff. Well, The
(06:18):
Mummy Returns had one where you could see what you were.
You would take this test and it would tell you
what you were in a past life. And I got
dumb beetle, and I've never forgotten it. I have never
forgotten it.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I see.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I mean, you've come out on top. That's the good news,
I guess. So you're not a dung beetle. Congratulations, proud
of you.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Thank you, thank you, Samana, I am not a dug beetle.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
You're not a dung beetle. Proud of you. Thanks for
being here. But yes, let's talk about the Mummy and
all the dung beetles. So The Mummy is a nineteen
ninety nine, twenty two years old, we are Old t
nine American adventure movie and remake of the nineteen thirty
two film, and it stars yes, Brendan Fraser and Rachel
(07:06):
Weiss and has written and directed by Steven Summers. Apparently
there were all kinds of issues while they filmed it
in Morocco, like snakes and sandstorms and yeah, no, thank you,
But I think that's also how they play into the ride.
But when the movie came out, it was a financial success,
which is why we have three of them. The critics
were so so on it, but the audio is obviously
(07:26):
like us really love it.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You know, there's like a cartoon series too, Oh is there.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. I think it is
something in twenty seventeen some series came out. So yeah, people.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Really really dug it.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
It's funny because a lot of reviews I was reading
of it, like recent reviews said, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
The CGI isn't great, but it holds up. I think
it holds up pretty.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
There's clearly oh this is obviously for the first one, Scorpian.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
King is like notoriously one of the worst CGI things ever.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But in this one.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, so the plot I could again, I could just
quote the whole movie. I could do the sound effects.
I could do it all. But I know that you
don't want it, so I won't. It opens an ancient
Egypt and we learn that a ox in the moon,
the pharaoh's mistress, is having an affair with its high
priest Emotep, whose spoiler alert is the Mummy. On one
of their forbidden pays. The Pharaoh catches them making out
(08:18):
and they both kill him. The guards are hammering down
the door to get in so a ox and the
Moon convinces Emotep to leave, telling him to use his
abilities to resurrect her. So he does, and before the
guards can arrest her, in Oxyna Moon kills herself. Emotep
and his priest steeal her body and take it to the.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Lost City of the Dead Hominoptra.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Immotep begins the ritual to bring her back, but is
interrupted by the Magi, who are the pharaoh's bodyguards before
he can complete the ritual. So as punishment for this,
Emotep is sentenced to the Hondai, which is a punishment
so horrific that it's never been used before. Basically, he's
mummifiedal his tongue is cut out, he's wrapped tightly in bandages,
(09:03):
put in a sarcophagus, and buried alive with those flesh
eating beetles. A curse has placed on him too, for
good measure, that if he's ever brought back, he would
unleash the seven plagues of Egypt and you know, like
destroy everything. So to top it off, the Megi are
sworn to guard him to make sure no one brings
him back.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So cut to the early nineteen hundreds American Ric O'Connell
played by Brendan Fraser leading some soldiers in the midst
of the battle at the sights of the ruins of Hawenoptra.
He also meets his Weasley acquaintance Benny. We all know, Benny,
You're gonna get yours. And as the battle goes on,
Rick realizes there's something supernatural going on, warning him away
(09:42):
and he makes off into the desert under observation of
the magi.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Then we jump to nineteen twenty six and we meet
Ev played by Rachel Weis, who is the daughter of
famous egyptologist. She's a librarian, but she wants to follow
in her parents' footsteps. However, this movie opens, she has
once again been rejected by the prestigious Bimbridge scholars and
(10:06):
she has one of the best worst intros ever in
my opinion. While she's precariously balanced on a ladder trying
to replace a book on the top shelf, the ladder
falls into the shelves and it's a domino effect, knocking
over all these huge shelves.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
The books go askew there's papers everywhere. Oh so good.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Then we meet her screwup brother Jonathan, who shows her
an ancient key he quote found aka stole. Jonathan takes
Ebe to a jail to meet the person who stole
it from, because she recognizes immediately like this might be
something special. And of course he stole it from none
other than Rick O'Connell, who is scheduled to be hanged.
(10:44):
O'Connell promises to take them to Haminoptra if they can
secure his release, and this is after he grabs Evie's
face and kisses her. Of course, she's able to cut
a deal with a warden and O'Connell is freed in
the nick of time, So off they go to Hamnatchra.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
You know. So they introduce Alex in the second one, Yeah,
the kid by having the Domino effects with the pillars,
so you know, they leak it a little bit, so
our intrepid crew SEUs off for Hemonopdra and Evie is taken,
of course with O'Connell's new cleaned up look, as would
I be. On their way, they encounter a group of
(11:23):
cocky Americans. Those those nasty Americans also also making their
way to Homonoptra with a cut with the help of
O'Connell's old frenemy Biddy. As EV's ruminating about the kiss
between her and O'Connell, the boat they're on actually gets
attacked by members of the Magi, which they don't want.
They're not aware of who they are, and they make
a narrow escape, switching over to Cammel's and it's the
(11:45):
O'Connell's turn to be impressed with Evie's new clothes and
looks right.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So as the sun rises, I'm not sure is revealed
like no longer these ruins, but fully restored, and these
groups race to the Americans, and our heroes race to
howm Nature to see who can get their first, and
Evie wins.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
After a few run ins with the Americans, you know,
like O'Connell stole some tools to get to ev they
fought over dig site, Evie realizes that they can go
underneath the Americans and dig up through there to beat
them to this book that they both want this bury
there are this treasure that they both want this buried there.
So while doing so, they find a sarcophagus of a
still quote juicy mummy. The Americans on the other hand,
(12:31):
find the Book of the Dead after setting off a
booby trap protecting it, and they also find some ancient
jars holding organs, which they divide amongst themselves.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Big mistake.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
And this is where one of my most quoted lines
of all time. Check over a movie, kush wantz ask me, like,
what's a movie thing? You say a lot that you
think no one gets? It's this beware of the US beware.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And every time she says that, she says in that
manner exactly too. Yeah, and that would exactly and you
can't see her, but she's definitely doing the fist of
the air. Yes, she does that every time as well.
Just go ahead and that. So yeah, the Magi attacked
their camp their back to warn them away, giving them
a day to leave. The warden dies, by the way
(13:15):
by a scara beetle because it goes inside of his skin,
drives him mad and he runs into a wall with
his head first. So you know, Evie gets really drunk
and flirts with Rick while who of course flirts back.
And also a great line quote You're wondering, what is
a place like me doing a girl like this? Of course,
but then she passes out right as she's about to
kiss him, and he does the okay, And the following night,
(13:40):
Eve steals the book because she can't help it, which
is the Book of the Dead from the Americans. And
he's a professor, right, He's not an American though, who is?
He's English, He's an Egyptologist.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
He's English. So there's like one non American in.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
The He knows what he's going for and is for
the same like intellectual properties as where they're all looking
for treasure. And she has the key, uses it to
open it, and she dumbly reads it out loud, accidentally
bring him back em tip yes, good job. Chaos ensues,
Locus descends on them, scare beetles, swarm people, and strip
them of their flesh. Eve falls down a trick passage
(14:15):
where she sees the shambling mummy, who calls her a
knucks on the moon and Rick finds her shoes in
the face, but as they flee, they don't see him
rise back up. And by the way, right before the
mummy takes the eyes of one of the Americans for
his itself.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, and just note in case you haven't seen this,
at this point he's like a mummy like there's skin
hanging off with him. You know, he's like a corpse
walking around. And yeah, this part with the America where
he takes the eyes. Friends of mine that have glasses
or have trouble seeing, they always tell me the scene
is terrifying because he breaks his glasses down in the
(14:49):
dark tombs and he can't see, and he's like, sees
this shape and thinks that somebody's gonna help him, and
then it's the Mummy and it takes his eyes.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Right. Yeah, I would say that except last night I
watched it again and I was like, but wait, his
glasses are way too thin, especially way back when because
I have horrible eyesight, and y'all when I say I
have to get those special duty glasses where it thins
them out, it's literally hundreds of dollars to make it thinner,
because if not, I would have the bottle of capped glasses. Yeah,
(15:17):
there's no way his hotsite was that bad. Yeah, when
they turned to is a point of view, I was like,
there's no way it was that bad. Like he may
have had trouble seeing for sure, but it would have
been that bad. Those glasses were way too thin.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Maybe his night vision there was.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Nothing about night vision on those glasses, then he couldn't
have seen in the first place.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
That's true, that's what I saw.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I was like, wait, because I'm so aware, like I
just recently bought some more glasses and I had to
pay an extra fee to make it not you know,
bottom of like it's really sad y'all anyway, But yeah,
so I just I think he's his eyesight was not
as bad as.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I love this.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I love when you see a movie with anybody with
a certain profession and after they leave there like, actually.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. It's definitely like anything I
see with the social work involved are in like school
law and when i'm you know, guvenile detention stuff. But
that's not how that goes, but you know whatever. By
the way, when this is all happening, he stumbles on Benny,
who can speak many languages, and starts praying to every
god there is, and when it says, oh, you're speaking
the language of my slaves, he assumes that he could,
(16:27):
you know, serve him, and so promises Benny a fortune
if he helps the Mummy regenerate, which of course involves
killing all the Americans and retrieving the jars, and because
he is Benny, he says, of course, yes, yes, please,
let's do this.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yes, yes, So now the mummy and it's got a
little psychekick Benny a henchman. Yeah, that's better. So Evie
refuses to leave. Like they've fled the scene and they're
back in a city. They're back in Cairo, I believe,
but they're like. Evie refuses to leave until she can
put a stop to the curse, despite Rick's attempts to
convince her otherwise, and more and more of the plagues
(17:02):
are starting out. The water turns into blood, they're slained
in the sky. Darkness descends, even though it's the.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Middle of the day.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
The Mummy arrives, kills one of the Americans, kisses ev
while she is asleep, again, calling her a Oxuna moon.
Rick arrives and scares him away with a cat, as
you know cats regardings the underworld in Egyptian mythology, and
the group meets up with a member of the magi,
artist Bay and the egyptologist at the library ev works at,
who also works with the magi, and they realize that
(17:32):
the Mummy is planning on using ev as a sacrifice
to bring back his beloved an Oxuna Moon. Evie is
able to correct a mistranslation to learn the location of
the Book of the Living, which should be enough to
destroy the Mummy, and it's a Bimbage scholar mistranslation, so
that's a powerful moment. But the Mummy corners them after
killing all the Americans and fully regenerating himself, so now
(17:53):
he looks human, and Evy agrees to go with him
in order to save the rest of the group.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Right, so Rick and John then and the Magi are
at Bay Sexy self make their way to Haminaptra, fight
their way through the mummy five priests, a half resurrected
a knocks on the Moon and the Mummy himself and
succeed in killing him thanks largely to Evie's wits, and
escape the collapsing city. Of course, then Rick and ev
kiss after they're like, oh, you know, I didn't get
(18:20):
anything out of that, that at any treasures, and Rick says, oh,
I don't know about that, and they ran right off
happily ever after, of course, until the second one of
comes run.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, that's always a funny thing when a movie.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And so happily after every but then you know there's
a sequel, so you're like, well, sure to.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Give it sometimes?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, sometimes?
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And I just wanted to put in here because every
time I watch this I think that this. Even as
a kid, I remember believing like Evie's armpits were so
well shaved, and I was like, did women do that
back then or did they get that close? Like I
don't know, but every time that sticks out to me,
that's true. All right, So that's the Mummy. And now
(19:02):
I guess we should talk about The Mummy Returns the
Mummy Too. But first let's pause for a quick break
forward from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Okay, so yes, the Mummy Too, or the Mummy Returns
as it's actually correct. Honestly, I love all of the
Mummy movies. I know they're not great, not all of
them are winners, but yes, I love them. And I
just really wanted to make any watch this because she
refuses to do so. And honestly, I would have chosen
to do the third one too, but I thought it
(19:46):
maybe too much for her to handle, so I gave
it up. But I mean, come on, Russell long Gently
and Michelle, yao, they're some of my favorite actors, and
I really do love who they are and the fact
that they are part of this franchise too.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, and okay, so Samantha was very adamant that we
watched this, and I'm actually not even sure why I'm
so resistant to it, but so I watched it last night.
I kept putting it off and putting it off, and
I was like, well, I guess I'd better watch it.
And then after it was over, I checked the outline
and yeah, we so this was happening.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
We're recording it the day after.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And I had a moment because Samantha hadn't added anything
to the outline about the Mummy returns, where I thought
she had played a prank on me and tricked me
into watching it, And I.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Was like ourge.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
By the way it was done. But I did have
a moment of like, what if I just deleted all
that part she put it in about the Mummy too,
and just moved on, I.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Would have been furious.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So like last night, I was fuming, even though for
all I knew you were going to we were going
to talk about it, even the possibility, right it wouldn't
be a good prank.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
But fortunately for everyone around. It's not a prank. And yes,
we are going to talk about it very briefly though,
because we are mainly going to focus on the original.
But I just had to put a very quick synopsis
so we can all bask in this glory of the sequel.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Sure, all right, So like the first movie, we have
the opening scene that begins with a legend, the Legend
of the Scorpion King, played by the one and only
the Rock, Dwayne at the Rock Johnson, who I believe
this is one of his first acting It was us actually, yeah,
and I that was one of the first things I
texted Samantha last night was Wow, the acting is He's
(21:34):
improved a lot, I'll say. And yeah, so he the
Scorpion King, became the Scorpion King by giving his soul
to the god and knew this who takes him after
giving him victory over his enemies with the help of
his army. So there's just like the Scorpion King will
rise again with the Army of the Dead thing. And
then we cut to the O'Connell's Rick and Evelyn Evy
(21:55):
with their son Alex, and yeah, they're still getting into
mischief by digging up things.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
They shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, archaeologists that keep digging things up, and it is
really funny because it plays on the whole how many
mummies and dead armies and things can we raise? And
they seem to have just accepted this, I guess. So
they discover a new treasure, the bracelet of Anubis Oh,
which is huge mistake. And as they discover it, they
(22:23):
also learned that there is a trap that for anyone
who removes it too late. Do they see the inscription
saying like don't open this warning you And we cut
to like waters from the nile rushing into their dig site.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Where are they almost drowned?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
But by chance, their son, who is trying to protect
the site from some shady thieves, breaks through the wall,
releasing them. And yeah, that's the pillar scene. That's very
reminiscent of how we meet Ev in the first one.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Right, and poor kid, I really like him, but his
acting is on par with the rock as well, just
going put that out there. All the while, Ev is
having visions as if she wasn't during the time of
the pharaoh SETI. It is able to know where everything
is mysteriously as if she's been there before. Cut too,
(23:08):
we see a crew of the bad guys digging up
the mummy Emmotep, and the crew is led by the
reincarnation of Immotep's love a Noxana Moon, who, like ev
is able to know where things are without being there before.
And of course they bring him back to life and
try to retrieve the bracelet from the O'Connell's so that
Imotep can command the Army of Anubis and take over
(23:30):
the world. Unbeknownst to all the adults, Alex has actually
put the bracelet on and started the journey of the
Bracelet that will lead them to the Scorpion King.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Why does everybody want to rule the world with these armies?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I don't need to tell me.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Also, just just note Phariseeti is the one that an
oxynommon Emotep killed, so that's kind of the visions EV's having.
Alex is then kidnapped by the Mummy and the bad dudes,
which lead all of them on a journey to get
to the location of Scorpion King. And we couldn't have
a good Mummy adventure without magi Ardith Bay. He returns
(24:05):
Evie's brother Jonathan, and this time we added a dirigible.
Of course, I was like, oh my god, flown by
an old friend of Rick's, Izzy and some shrunken heads
pygmy mummies to the mix. We also discover that not
only do we have the reincarnation of a Oxuna Moon,
but Princess nepher Titi, which turns out to be Evie
(24:28):
from a past life who was the daughter of Pharaoh SETI.
Uh yeah again a Noxa Moon and Emotep kills him,
and she she witnessed that from like a balcony away
and she is the protector of the bracelet as well.
I guess we should also say Rick is apparently some
like guardian.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
I meant to look that up, but yeah, somebody he
is the guardian of He's like part of the magi
Yeah yeah, brotherhood of sorts because he has.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
To do the the two as they say, and yeah,
this is where my whole dumb beetle past.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Life past comes from.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
So as they arrived to get Alex back and try
to stop the Scorpion King, Evie is killed.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And then brought back to life through the Book of
the Dead, of course by Alex.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
She fights a knocks in the moon while Rick is
fighting a really ridiculous looking CGI of the Rock as
a scorpion king. I'm not exaggerating when I say this
consistently comes up on list of the worst CGI at
all time, especially from like a big budget movie.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
I think it was like I remember seeing this either
in the theaters I can't remember, but the audible laughter
of the two years seeing him come out of the
wall or the doors or the cave and we were
all like.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
What, Yeah, that guy like appears out of nowhere, the
kind of top he was ahead of the British Museum
and he's sort of like top goon. Yeah, he sort
of appears into the scorpion King rips him into five pieces,
and I was like, why.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Is what.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
He's got to show strength?
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, they were trying to they were trying to show
what he could do with his little scorpion limbs. Again,
if no one's seen this, this is essentially the rock
with the scorpion bottom right, he's the top half is
the rock.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
But it's all CGI, is all badly CGI, And at
this point in time, there's really no excuse about how
bad it was. Why it was so bad.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
I'm sure that people working on it would argue, do
you think so.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
I've seen but that's the thing, is like we've seen
so much better.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Why, Yeah, they were working things out back then.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I don't know. I don't know. Okay, she made the
Mummy noise noise.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
So as these fights are going, Evy races in, so
does the Noxy the Moon.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
See they're kind of loves in this battle.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
All the Emo Tep is really thrown Rick under the bus,
which I get, but yeah, whatever, So Rick is able
to kill the Scorpion king, and Emotep and Rick are
both like hanging precariously over this chasm of dead souls
heale essentially yes, and they're trying to pull them the
these souls are trying to pull Rick in Emo Tip
(27:20):
down and the whole place is collapsing. Ev runs in
and saves Rick, while an ox in the Moon abandons
Emo Tip and Emotep is so heartbroken he lets go
and presumably dies.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Who knows.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Anyway, they escape an Oxen Moon gets eaten by the
scare of beetles, but Ev and Rick and Jonathan all
the crew escape via dirigible. Did they ever explain how
they fixed it and got the guests?
Speaker 3 (27:48):
He found something? Right?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I shouldn't ask any questions, is he came through.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah, so they escape and again happily ever after until
the next one comes along.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
I guess right, And there's a third one. And in
this one, we're not gonna talk anything, but I had
to mention it because I love it so much, just
the fact that they are now wealthy people. Oh yeah,
and they're no longer digging, they are now retired, and
they're both very bored. And yes, Rachel Weiss is no
longer there. It is now Maria Bellows. So it's not
(28:23):
Mummy three but the Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which,
by the way, got one star rating.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
We only talk about the finest films on the show.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
And also twelve percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
The lowest we've ever hit because Pocus and Practical Magic.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
We're like at twenty twenty eight percent.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Okay, oh go twelve percent on that, but eighty three
of the Google users like it, so hey, hey, okay,
maybe three percent.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Sorry.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
So anyway, all of that is say, they kind of
jump into a new one where Ali becomes an older
archaeologist and is digging in China and finds the Dragon
Emperor and his vast army in the fields. Whatever I'm
not gonna go do it, but it's fantastic because I
do love again those Asian actors, and I think they're
(29:16):
fantastic and to see them for just a split second
is delightful. But yes, that's the ridiculousness, like, ooh, I
don't know how Rick O'Connell could possibly beat in combat
gently but okay, yeah, the Dragon King who was also
magical and knows a lot of martial arts, but hey,
who cares?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Right?
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Who cares? But yes, that one is also a franchise.
But The Mummy is no longer a motep. They've now
moved on to China, kind of finished as a China
a little bit, but whatever, still a delight to me,
a delight and worth one watch. But I'm not a
second one to talk about. But I just have to
throw that in there.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yeah, I've only seen it once, and the only part
I really remember is when it zooms in on should
be Rachel Weiss, and it's like it's like I'm a
whole new person or something.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
An American actor was not great English accent, say she's
a whole new person, which is true.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
That was one thing I noticed when I watched The
Mummy returns because I think i'd seen that like two
or three times before, but it's been I mean since
it came out. It was it was like a classic
action sequel in the sense that everything was way bigger.
And Rick O'Connell, like I love him, but he was
doing things where I was like, Wow, you've really upped
your game. You caught the knife, like over here, you're
(30:32):
doing all kinds of stunts.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I'm very impressed.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
But right, and also we're not going to talk about
the side of the There was a whole franchise of
The Scorpion King, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Oh boy, that was also a one and done for me.
But if you're looking for a laugh the Scorpion King,
there you go. So all right, now that we've gone
through the plots of these, we did want to talk
about some themes. But first we're gonna pause for one
work a quick forward from a sponsor, and we're back.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Thank you sponsor.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
So I did want to put a disclaimer in here
that maybe I should have put it at the top,
but whatever, neither of these movies, or I guess none
of these movies, if we're gonna count the third one
would be a movie that pops into my head if
somebody asked me, like, name a feminist movie. Like if
I was trying to list feminist movies, I might get.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
To the nineteen ninety nine Mommy, but it would be way, way,
way way down the list.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
But then, you know, honestly, I have some trouble thinking
of feminist movies when people ask me. So I don't know,
but it's definitely not something that I would come to
mind for me until the listener suggested it. The first
one doesn't pass the Bechdel test, I don't think. I
don't think the second one does either. Not that that's
the end all be all of feminist movies, but of note,
(32:05):
and there are definitely some problematic sayings in all of them,
but there are some excellent feminist elements too, particularly in
the character of ev So let's start with her, and
I'll be focusing on the first one. So Evie is
a really competent, smart, funny, determined, adventurous, charming, and decisive character.
(32:28):
Most of the plans she comes up with them on
her own, quickly and under pressure. I also really appreciate
how she's just sort of she's really quick to anger
or to be happy like she's just ya, I don't know,
fiery or so, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
She is feminine in a dress and with her long hair,
but that doesn't hold her back. She still has a
lot of agency and in a flip, her brother Jonathan
is the mess up in their family. Although it's kind
of funny because, especially in the beginning, I feel like
there's this vibe where I guess she think she's the
screw up in the family, but compared to Jonathan, she's
(33:03):
definitely not right. Evie is the one that gets to
Hamnacha first. She's the one that decides to stop the
mummy after she brought him back, but she accepts her
fault in that she's the one to correctly translate something
from the bimbage scholars that they had messed up, and
this is all after they consistently rejected her. She's the
(33:23):
one that helps Jonathan translate an Egyptian inscription that saves them,
and this is while she's being attacked and strangled by
a kno sunermoons mummified half alive corpse. Well, you know,
there's that distracting and I love her reaction when Jonathan
accidentally drops the Book of the Living into that pool,
and as the city is.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Collapsing, she stops and is like, what have you done?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
They have to drag her away because she's just so
passionate about these things.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yeah, she's a scholar. Yeah, and Evie generally serves as
the leader of the group. Obviously, she's the one that
that's like, we need to go dig here instead of
let's do this this way. And Rick is the muscle,
you know. Even in the second one, she does the
same thing. She leads them to wards they need to
go and she's like here, you know, start working, and
then he uses the bigger tools because of course he's man,
(34:12):
and he's comfortable in that position and comfortable following her lead.
The only time Rick takes the lead is during physical
situations or obviously when Av's not there, and he he
pretty much listens to her and trusts her, follows her
lead without complaint, and when they do disagree or argue,
they do as equals. So that's nice.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, yeah, And I mean it is funny because she
is leader and often especially in the second one, which
again I hadn't seen in a very long time, but
he's like, are you do we have to do this,
and she's like this, She's just so adventurous and passionate
about these things, and he's kind of resigned to Okay, okay,
(34:51):
I guess. And I would argue that the first movie,
especially is driven by her and Rick just follows her.
I think she You could make a good argument that
she he's the main character. At the very least, they
kind of share that role of main characters. And even
when Evie is the damsel in distress in the first one,
it is by choice to give the group the best
(35:12):
chance of success. She's not a passive victim. She is
not cow During her imprisonment, she does use her femininity
to kiss Emotep and distract him from killing her friends.
She threatens and vox Binny, which I do love. That
seems she's like always he's like, oh no. She helps
her brother translate the inscription while she's being attacked, and
(35:35):
she's the one that reads the passage that renders the
Mummy as mortal and allows Rick to kill him.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Right. And in the second one, they do blame her
for killing Emotep, and that's why they kidnap her because
they won't revenge against her. They could care less about Rick.
They obviously blame her, as they should, as well as
the fact that when you look at the second one
is her and a knocks on a moon, who are
the protectors of pretty much the realm, whether it's the
ricelet or the Pharaoh. They protect and they were chosen
(36:02):
to protect and fight, so it's kind of interesting to
get that. And yes, she actually gets to fight a
little bit in this one where she has some sore
play and play with size even yeah, of course it
was very obvious it wasn't her during those scenes, but
so nice to think on and of golf. Of course,
we could also talk about the constant use of white
(36:23):
women with dark hair for characters like Neffertiindia and Cleopatra,
but that's a whole other conversation because she is supposed
to be a lineage of that in English as well,
from what I understood from the first one, right, her
mother was Egyptian, her father was.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
In Oh yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
You know whatever, they know, we know all know this
has to be a stretch to tie things together perfectly,
to bring it to one. But yes, in both movies
that she also saves Rick, whether she saves them from
the gallows or she saves them from the pit of
hell obviously, so she is the hero in both of
these things. They also still follow her footsteps in the
second one, and she even has her maternal instincts as
(37:01):
a drive and a push for this one as well
to get her son back. So, yeah, you know, she's
the main character. I would agree with that.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, I definitely think so.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
She's the leader for sure, absolutely, And I did want
to talk about the relationship aspect between Evie and Rick,
because Rick is clearly attracted to more than just her looks,
which is unfortunately kind of rare in these adventure action
adventure movies. He gives her the tools that he stole
(37:33):
because he knows that she's passionate about what she does
and good at what she does, and he wants her
to be able to lead them and find what she
wants to find. And Rick doesn't pursue romance with her
like most male characters from these adventure movies do. He
isn't showing off for her. He's just kind of this consistent, capable, respectful,
(37:55):
kind tender in the way that he follows her and
expects her that's really allowed in male characters in this genre.
And also you do see, like, as we mentioned when
we were doing the plot synopsis, you see Evie kind
of pining after.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Him, which is rare too.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Like normally it's just like it's the guy's perspective and
he and she's just over the moon about him and
so smitten with him, and it's very one dimensional.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
But in this she's like, it's equally.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
You can tell that they're both charmed equally by each other,
which is nice and yeah, pretty pretty rare for this
genre or especially at that time, right, And it does
continue in the second one. You do you see them
build on that, on this trust and like loving and
care and being on this equal ground and having their
(38:49):
like areas of expertise right where they trust that their
partner to handle this part of it or this part
of it, and the very accepting of each other, I
would say, right.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
I think, yeah, in the second one, you definitely see
the relationship of them compromising because they do still go
on adventures. They do go on a dangerous sight digging, yes,
but she gives in by saying, let's not go to
the next one. Now, let's go ahead and say here.
And of course they also have to add that the
Bimbridge scholars have been begging her of course for them now,
(39:24):
so that did equal out. We do get to see
all of that. You see the conversations they have as parents,
but at the same time still being madly in love,
so of course they have to one up that one
as well, So it is good to see that type
of relationship. We also see Jonathan still being a rake,
as they would say, I've been watching Bridger den y'all
it's seeping that language is sleeping in. But yeah, so
(39:48):
you see that as well, and I found that really
of course on par like with everything else, his greed
and his playboy acting, I guess. But it's also fun
to see relationships still intact and him being pretty childish
still and them kind of taking care of him.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, troublemaker for sure. Yes, yes, and I did it.
I did appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
You get to see Evi and Rick separately as being
I would say good parents are very caring parents like protective,
so you do like it's kind of understood often that
you're going to see the mother in those maternal instincts,
but you did with Rick.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
You really saw him.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Being protective and all the paternal protective instincts too, so
that was nice. And yeah, you do have the comparison
of because this whole thing starts with a Knox souder
Moon an Amo Tep trying to be together, although I
guess now after the second one you could argue that
a x suner Moon really wanted power and ultimately, yeah,
(40:53):
and that moment and the end of the second one
where Evie and a Knox Suna Moon are watching there they're.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Husbands, is like, I don't know if is meridamet.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
But you know, lovers in danger and eb decides to
save Rick and a Noxynyum flees. I always thought that
part was interesting, that there's like which one is the
true love and that you know, you still have this
sort of a Oxymum throughout is kind of painted as
this power player who's got something else going on, which
(41:23):
is pretty common among female villains right now.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
The thing is like the first one, she was not
the villain. She was definitely someone you felt sorry for
because we don't see. What we don't see is that
the pharaoh is kind of evil. He keeps her as
a slave essentially, like he calls her protector and we
talk about that, but essentially she has no choice because
we know that her body paint is to show her purity,
that she would only be touched by him, right, And
(41:48):
so she was in love with another man. So it's
kind of a sad story in himself. But at the
same time, he don't become a mummy kill everyone else.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
The moral of the story.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
That's not cool.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
The moral of the story. Yeah, I think we could
end on that. Thanks again to the listener who suggested
this and the blog post lean in Reddress. I know
that that blog post was written after another podcast really
tore into this movie for not being feminists, So we're
just presenting a different point of view.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
We know it's not the most feminist.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
It's definitely not the most feminist. But is this enjoyable
and there are some things to take away from for sure?
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Oh yeah, And like I said at the top, Evie
still holds up. Ev is still a pretty great character.
So if you haven't seen it, we highly recommend it.
Samantha recommends the other two as well.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Go for it, just go ahead and enjoy it. Enjoy
I agree. For get your favorite drink God, I agree.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
And in the meantime, we would love to hear from
you listeners, especially if you've got suggestions for what our
next movies our movie should be, you can email us
at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
can also find us on Instagram as stephone Never Told
You or on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Thanks is always to our super producer Andrew Howard.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Oh, thanks, and.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Thanks to you for listening stephone Never Told You the
protection of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or reeve you listen to your
favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I want to put
his stuff. I never told you affliction if I heard you.
And today we are bringing back another fun one. It
is the twenty fifth anniversary of the Mummy, and it
(00:26):
was in theaters briefly.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I wanted to go see it, but I think I
missed the window.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
But as you know, listeners, I hope we did a
feminist newbe Friday on that and the Mummy returns.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I don't think you watched that third one.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I've been seeing so much conversation about it and why
people love it and uh, and I've heard there's talk
of bringing back the Mummy and making a new one.
I don't know if it's been confirmed, but I've to
love chatter about it. So we shall have to see.
(01:04):
But in the meantime, please enjoy this classic episode. Hey,
this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephano Never
Told You production of iHeartRadio. It is time for another
(01:29):
feminist movie Friday, the first of twenty twenty one. Yeah, yes,
and we're starting it with one of my absolute favorite
movies of all time, the nineteen ninety nine classic The Mummy.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
The Mummy and by Samantha's insistence.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
The Mummy too, Philia has to be there.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
According to you, you're very very passionate about it. Yes,
and the Mummy was a listener suggestion, So thank you, Kayla.
I always love when listeners suggests something that I love anyway,
So it's like I get to just.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Rewatch something that I already really enjoy.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And she sent us a link to a blog post
by Lena in a Red Dress that was really helpful.
In all of this made a lot of great points
about the kind of feminist take on this movie. We'll
be getting into that later. Also, I recently ish watched
this with coworker and friend Lauren Vogelbaum, and we kept
saying how much Rachel Advice's character still holds up.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
We kept being like, wow, like that, Yeah, I feel
like unlike a lot of the movies or TV that
we watched from twenty years ago, twenty years ago, I
know it doesn't hold up and you kind of squirm
and have to accept that it was made back when
even though it shouldn't have been made back when, And
this one doesn't do that as much. So you were
(02:49):
like okay, or cool, woor cool, although the second one
a little less held a little less. We'll say that.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, well, I absolutely adore The Mummy. It's one of
six movies that I can quote the whole way through
the Egyptian in all which I have no idea if
that's actually Egyptian, but I can say it similarly.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
To how they say it to the movie.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
And I remember I had to campaign really hard to
see this movie in theaters as my dad because he's like,
I think it might scare you, and I don't know.
I was at the age where it still my parents
would go with me to PG thirteen movies, and I
just I worked so hard convince him, and then I
was trying really really hard to hide how scared I
(03:36):
was because he was right. The Beatles, the scare of
Beatles really scared me. And I think I had a
crush on pretty much half the people in this movie
at one point in time. And I love the ride
at Universal. It is so fun. That is a good ride.
I hope they don't take it down because it's funny.
It's like about the making of the movie right, And
I'm not sure how much like the younger generation gets it.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
But right right, And it's definitely old Brendan Fraser too.
It's definitely way back when Brendan Fraser, right, because when
you see him today looks a little different. Has gone
through a lot of stuff, unfortunately, or dude, and it's
trying to come out of it on the other side.
But it's definitely taking him a minute. I don't know
how else to do this, So it was prime Brendan Fraser.
(04:20):
I will say that, although I will say he was
one of my first Prussis not because of this movie,
but because of movies like in Sino Man and School Ties.
Those two movies are the one things that made him
for me.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
That's so great.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Oh yeah, I've never seen any of those, but I
know the image like on the cover.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
So oh yeah. In Sino Man, my friend and I
in high school we memorized that movie. We know all
of everything to do with that movie. We even got
the soundtrack to that movie. Yeah, we were really into it.
Oh wow, Oh yes, wow. I know I've spoken before
about my my New Year's tradition on this show, where
(05:00):
I very specifically choose the last movie I want to
end a year on in the first movie I want
to start the New year on, and a couple of
years ago. I was in South Africa for work over
New Years and the last movie I saw was.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
The New Mummy with Tom Cruise on the plane. Oh no,
it was not good. It was bad, bad, bad, bad
movie to go out on. So when I got home,
the first movie I watched the New Year was the
nineteen ninety nine versions for it.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Never had a desire to see the Tom Cruise version
because I was like, what is this. I trying to
make something that was like, yes, action filled, but also
fun to just action watch Tom Cruise get hurt and
hurt things. Okay, cool?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah, And I mean the ending was pretty weird too,
because they were trying to set up that whole like
the new Universal Monster series. So it's like, clearly meant
to be a series, but you just knew it probably
wasn't gonna happen, so what fuff?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, and also when The Mummy too, the Mummy return
and so I keep taking yeah, mommy returns, let me
get it correct. But when that came out that there
was this website for the movie, which I actually after
we watched You've Got Mail, I got really into that
for a minute, remembering those like old remember when movies
would come out, they would have these like websites and
you can play games on them and stuff. Well, The
(06:18):
Mummy Returns had one where you could see what you were.
You would take this test and it would tell you
what you were in a past life. And I got
dumb beetle, and I've never forgotten it. I have never
forgotten it.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I see.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I mean, you've come out on top. That's the good news,
I guess. So you're not a dung beetle. Congratulations, proud
of you.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Thank you, thank you, Samana, I am not a dug beetle.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
You're not a dung beetle. Proud of you. Thanks for
being here. But yes, let's talk about the Mummy and
all the dung beetles. So The Mummy is a nineteen
ninety nine, twenty two years old, we are Old t
nine American adventure movie and remake of the nineteen thirty
two film, and it stars yes, Brendan Fraser and Rachel
(07:06):
Weiss and has written and directed by Steven Summers. Apparently
there were all kinds of issues while they filmed it
in Morocco, like snakes and sandstorms and yeah, no, thank you,
But I think that's also how they play into the ride.
But when the movie came out, it was a financial success,
which is why we have three of them. The critics
were so so on it, but the audio is obviously
(07:26):
like us really love it.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You know, there's like a cartoon series too, Oh is there.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. I think it is
something in twenty seventeen some series came out. So yeah, people.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Really really dug it.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
It's funny because a lot of reviews I was reading
of it, like recent reviews said, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
The CGI isn't great, but it holds up. I think
it holds up pretty.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
There's clearly oh this is obviously for the first one, Scorpian.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
King is like notoriously one of the worst CGI things ever.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But in this one.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, so the plot I could again, I could just
quote the whole movie. I could do the sound effects.
I could do it all. But I know that you
don't want it, so I won't. It opens an ancient
Egypt and we learn that a ox in the moon,
the pharaoh's mistress, is having an affair with its high
priest Emotep, whose spoiler alert is the Mummy. On one
of their forbidden pays. The Pharaoh catches them making out
(08:18):
and they both kill him. The guards are hammering down
the door to get in so a ox and the
Moon convinces Emotep to leave, telling him to use his
abilities to resurrect her. So he does, and before the
guards can arrest her, in Oxyna Moon kills herself. Emotep
and his priest steeal her body and take it to the.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Lost City of the Dead Hominoptra.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Immotep begins the ritual to bring her back, but is
interrupted by the Magi, who are the pharaoh's bodyguards before
he can complete the ritual. So as punishment for this,
Emotep is sentenced to the Hondai, which is a punishment
so horrific that it's never been used before. Basically, he's
mummifiedal his tongue is cut out, he's wrapped tightly in bandages,
(09:03):
put in a sarcophagus, and buried alive with those flesh
eating beetles. A curse has placed on him too, for
good measure, that if he's ever brought back, he would
unleash the seven plagues of Egypt and you know, like
destroy everything. So to top it off, the Megi are
sworn to guard him to make sure no one brings
him back.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So cut to the early nineteen hundreds American Ric O'Connell
played by Brendan Fraser leading some soldiers in the midst
of the battle at the sights of the ruins of Hawenoptra.
He also meets his Weasley acquaintance Benny. We all know, Benny,
You're gonna get yours. And as the battle goes on,
Rick realizes there's something supernatural going on, warning him away
(09:42):
and he makes off into the desert under observation of
the magi.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Then we jump to nineteen twenty six and we meet
Ev played by Rachel Weis, who is the daughter of
famous egyptologist. She's a librarian, but she wants to follow
in her parents' footsteps. However, this movie opens, she has
once again been rejected by the prestigious Bimbridge scholars and
(10:06):
she has one of the best worst intros ever in
my opinion. While she's precariously balanced on a ladder trying
to replace a book on the top shelf, the ladder
falls into the shelves and it's a domino effect, knocking
over all these huge shelves.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
The books go askew there's papers everywhere. Oh so good.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Then we meet her screwup brother Jonathan, who shows her
an ancient key he quote found aka stole. Jonathan takes
Ebe to a jail to meet the person who stole
it from, because she recognizes immediately like this might be
something special. And of course he stole it from none
other than Rick O'Connell, who is scheduled to be hanged.
(10:44):
O'Connell promises to take them to Haminoptra if they can
secure his release, and this is after he grabs Evie's
face and kisses her. Of course, she's able to cut
a deal with a warden and O'Connell is freed in
the nick of time, So off they go to Hamnatchra.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
You know. So they introduce Alex in the second one, Yeah,
the kid by having the Domino effects with the pillars,
so you know, they leak it a little bit, so
our intrepid crew SEUs off for Hemonopdra and Evie is taken,
of course with O'Connell's new cleaned up look, as would
I be. On their way, they encounter a group of
(11:23):
cocky Americans. Those those nasty Americans also also making their
way to Homonoptra with a cut with the help of
O'Connell's old frenemy Biddy. As EV's ruminating about the kiss
between her and O'Connell, the boat they're on actually gets
attacked by members of the Magi, which they don't want.
They're not aware of who they are, and they make
a narrow escape, switching over to Cammel's and it's the
(11:45):
O'Connell's turn to be impressed with Evie's new clothes and
looks right.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So as the sun rises, I'm not sure is revealed
like no longer these ruins, but fully restored, and these
groups race to the Americans, and our heroes race to
howm Nature to see who can get their first, and
Evie wins.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
After a few run ins with the Americans, you know,
like O'Connell stole some tools to get to ev they
fought over dig site, Evie realizes that they can go
underneath the Americans and dig up through there to beat
them to this book that they both want this bury
there are this treasure that they both want this buried there.
So while doing so, they find a sarcophagus of a
still quote juicy mummy. The Americans on the other hand,
(12:31):
find the Book of the Dead after setting off a
booby trap protecting it, and they also find some ancient
jars holding organs, which they divide amongst themselves.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Big mistake.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
And this is where one of my most quoted lines
of all time. Check over a movie, kush wantz ask me, like,
what's a movie thing? You say a lot that you
think no one gets? It's this beware of the US beware.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And every time she says that, she says in that
manner exactly too. Yeah, and that would exactly and you
can't see her, but she's definitely doing the fist of
the air. Yes, she does that every time as well.
Just go ahead and that. So yeah, the Magi attacked
their camp their back to warn them away, giving them
a day to leave. The warden dies, by the way
(13:15):
by a scara beetle because it goes inside of his skin,
drives him mad and he runs into a wall with
his head first. So you know, Evie gets really drunk
and flirts with Rick while who of course flirts back.
And also a great line quote You're wondering, what is
a place like me doing a girl like this? Of course,
but then she passes out right as she's about to
kiss him, and he does the okay, And the following night,
(13:40):
Eve steals the book because she can't help it, which
is the Book of the Dead from the Americans. And
he's a professor, right, He's not an American though, who is?
He's English, He's an Egyptologist.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
He's English. So there's like one non American in.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
The He knows what he's going for and is for
the same like intellectual properties as where they're all looking
for treasure. And she has the key, uses it to
open it, and she dumbly reads it out loud, accidentally
bring him back em tip yes, good job. Chaos ensues,
Locus descends on them, scare beetles, swarm people, and strip
them of their flesh. Eve falls down a trick passage
(14:15):
where she sees the shambling mummy, who calls her a
knucks on the moon and Rick finds her shoes in
the face, but as they flee, they don't see him
rise back up. And by the way, right before the
mummy takes the eyes of one of the Americans for
his itself.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, and just note in case you haven't seen this,
at this point he's like a mummy like there's skin
hanging off with him. You know, he's like a corpse
walking around. And yeah, this part with the America where
he takes the eyes. Friends of mine that have glasses
or have trouble seeing, they always tell me the scene
is terrifying because he breaks his glasses down in the
(14:49):
dark tombs and he can't see, and he's like, sees
this shape and thinks that somebody's gonna help him, and
then it's the Mummy and it takes his eyes.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Right. Yeah, I would say that except last night I
watched it again and I was like, but wait, his
glasses are way too thin, especially way back when because
I have horrible eyesight, and y'all when I say I
have to get those special duty glasses where it thins
them out, it's literally hundreds of dollars to make it thinner,
because if not, I would have the bottle of capped glasses. Yeah,
(15:17):
there's no way his hotsite was that bad. Yeah, when
they turned to is a point of view, I was like,
there's no way it was that bad. Like he may
have had trouble seeing for sure, but it would have
been that bad. Those glasses were way too thin.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Maybe his night vision there was.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Nothing about night vision on those glasses, then he couldn't
have seen in the first place.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
That's true, that's what I saw.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I was like, wait, because I'm so aware, like I
just recently bought some more glasses and I had to
pay an extra fee to make it not you know,
bottom of like it's really sad y'all anyway, But yeah,
so I just I think he's his eyesight was not
as bad as.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I love this.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I love when you see a movie with anybody with
a certain profession and after they leave there like, actually.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. It's definitely like anything I
see with the social work involved are in like school
law and when i'm you know, guvenile detention stuff. But
that's not how that goes, but you know whatever. By
the way, when this is all happening, he stumbles on Benny,
who can speak many languages, and starts praying to every
god there is, and when it says, oh, you're speaking
the language of my slaves, he assumes that he could,
(16:27):
you know, serve him, and so promises Benny a fortune
if he helps the Mummy regenerate, which of course involves
killing all the Americans and retrieving the jars, and because
he is Benny, he says, of course, yes, yes, please,
let's do this.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yes, yes, So now the mummy and it's got a
little psychekick Benny a henchman. Yeah, that's better. So Evie
refuses to leave. Like they've fled the scene and they're
back in a city. They're back in Cairo, I believe,
but they're like. Evie refuses to leave until she can
put a stop to the curse, despite Rick's attempts to
convince her otherwise, and more and more of the plagues
(17:02):
are starting out. The water turns into blood, they're slained
in the sky. Darkness descends, even though it's the.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Middle of the day.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
The Mummy arrives, kills one of the Americans, kisses ev
while she is asleep, again, calling her a Oxuna moon.
Rick arrives and scares him away with a cat, as
you know cats regardings the underworld in Egyptian mythology, and
the group meets up with a member of the magi,
artist Bay and the egyptologist at the library ev works at,
who also works with the magi, and they realize that
(17:32):
the Mummy is planning on using ev as a sacrifice
to bring back his beloved an Oxuna Moon. Evie is
able to correct a mistranslation to learn the location of
the Book of the Living, which should be enough to
destroy the Mummy, and it's a Bimbage scholar mistranslation, so
that's a powerful moment. But the Mummy corners them after
killing all the Americans and fully regenerating himself, so now
(17:53):
he looks human, and Evy agrees to go with him
in order to save the rest of the group.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Right, so Rick and John then and the Magi are
at Bay Sexy self make their way to Haminaptra, fight
their way through the mummy five priests, a half resurrected
a knocks on the Moon and the Mummy himself and
succeed in killing him thanks largely to Evie's wits, and
escape the collapsing city. Of course, then Rick and ev
kiss after they're like, oh, you know, I didn't get
(18:20):
anything out of that, that at any treasures, and Rick says, oh,
I don't know about that, and they ran right off
happily ever after, of course, until the second one of
comes run.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, that's always a funny thing when a movie.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And so happily after every but then you know there's
a sequel, so you're like, well, sure to.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Give it sometimes?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, sometimes?
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And I just wanted to put in here because every
time I watch this I think that this. Even as
a kid, I remember believing like Evie's armpits were so
well shaved, and I was like, did women do that
back then or did they get that close? Like I
don't know, but every time that sticks out to me,
that's true. All right, So that's the Mummy. And now
(19:02):
I guess we should talk about The Mummy Returns the
Mummy Too. But first let's pause for a quick break
forward from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Okay, so yes, the Mummy Too, or the Mummy Returns
as it's actually correct. Honestly, I love all of the
Mummy movies. I know they're not great, not all of
them are winners, but yes, I love them. And I
just really wanted to make any watch this because she
refuses to do so. And honestly, I would have chosen
to do the third one too, but I thought it
(19:46):
maybe too much for her to handle, so I gave
it up. But I mean, come on, Russell long Gently
and Michelle, yao, they're some of my favorite actors, and
I really do love who they are and the fact
that they are part of this franchise too.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, and okay, so Samantha was very adamant that we
watched this, and I'm actually not even sure why I'm
so resistant to it, but so I watched it last night.
I kept putting it off and putting it off, and
I was like, well, I guess I'd better watch it.
And then after it was over, I checked the outline
and yeah, we so this was happening.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
We're recording it the day after.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And I had a moment because Samantha hadn't added anything
to the outline about the Mummy returns, where I thought
she had played a prank on me and tricked me
into watching it, And I.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Was like ourge.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
By the way it was done. But I did have
a moment of like, what if I just deleted all
that part she put it in about the Mummy too,
and just moved on, I.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Would have been furious.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So like last night, I was fuming, even though for
all I knew you were going to we were going
to talk about it, even the possibility, right it wouldn't
be a good prank.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
But fortunately for everyone around. It's not a prank. And yes,
we are going to talk about it very briefly though,
because we are mainly going to focus on the original.
But I just had to put a very quick synopsis
so we can all bask in this glory of the sequel.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Sure, all right, So like the first movie, we have
the opening scene that begins with a legend, the Legend
of the Scorpion King, played by the one and only
the Rock, Dwayne at the Rock Johnson, who I believe
this is one of his first acting It was us actually, yeah,
and I that was one of the first things I
texted Samantha last night was Wow, the acting is He's
(21:34):
improved a lot, I'll say. And yeah, so he the
Scorpion King, became the Scorpion King by giving his soul
to the god and knew this who takes him after
giving him victory over his enemies with the help of
his army. So there's just like the Scorpion King will
rise again with the Army of the Dead thing. And
then we cut to the O'Connell's Rick and Evelyn Evy
(21:55):
with their son Alex, and yeah, they're still getting into
mischief by digging up things.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
They shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, archaeologists that keep digging things up, and it is
really funny because it plays on the whole how many
mummies and dead armies and things can we raise? And
they seem to have just accepted this, I guess. So
they discover a new treasure, the bracelet of Anubis Oh,
which is huge mistake. And as they discover it, they
(22:23):
also learned that there is a trap that for anyone
who removes it too late. Do they see the inscription
saying like don't open this warning you And we cut
to like waters from the nile rushing into their dig site.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Where are they almost drowned?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
But by chance, their son, who is trying to protect
the site from some shady thieves, breaks through the wall,
releasing them. And yeah, that's the pillar scene. That's very
reminiscent of how we meet Ev in the first one.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Right, and poor kid, I really like him, but his
acting is on par with the rock as well, just
going put that out there. All the while, Ev is
having visions as if she wasn't during the time of
the pharaoh SETI. It is able to know where everything
is mysteriously as if she's been there before. Cut too,
(23:08):
we see a crew of the bad guys digging up
the mummy Emmotep, and the crew is led by the
reincarnation of Immotep's love a Noxana Moon, who, like ev
is able to know where things are without being there before.
And of course they bring him back to life and
try to retrieve the bracelet from the O'Connell's so that
Imotep can command the Army of Anubis and take over
(23:30):
the world. Unbeknownst to all the adults, Alex has actually
put the bracelet on and started the journey of the
Bracelet that will lead them to the Scorpion King.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Why does everybody want to rule the world with these armies?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I don't need to tell me.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Also, just just note Phariseeti is the one that an
oxynommon Emotep killed, so that's kind of the visions EV's having.
Alex is then kidnapped by the Mummy and the bad dudes,
which lead all of them on a journey to get
to the location of Scorpion King. And we couldn't have
a good Mummy adventure without magi Ardith Bay. He returns
(24:05):
Evie's brother Jonathan, and this time we added a dirigible.
Of course, I was like, oh my god, flown by
an old friend of Rick's, Izzy and some shrunken heads
pygmy mummies to the mix. We also discover that not
only do we have the reincarnation of a Oxuna Moon,
but Princess nepher Titi, which turns out to be Evie
(24:28):
from a past life who was the daughter of Pharaoh SETI.
Uh yeah again a Noxa Moon and Emotep kills him,
and she she witnessed that from like a balcony away
and she is the protector of the bracelet as well.
I guess we should also say Rick is apparently some
like guardian.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
I meant to look that up, but yeah, somebody he
is the guardian of He's like part of the magi
Yeah yeah, brotherhood of sorts because he has.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
To do the the two as they say, and yeah,
this is where my whole dumb beetle past.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Life past comes from.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
So as they arrived to get Alex back and try
to stop the Scorpion King, Evie is killed.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And then brought back to life through the Book of
the Dead, of course by Alex.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
She fights a knocks in the moon while Rick is
fighting a really ridiculous looking CGI of the Rock as
a scorpion king. I'm not exaggerating when I say this
consistently comes up on list of the worst CGI at
all time, especially from like a big budget movie.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
I think it was like I remember seeing this either
in the theaters I can't remember, but the audible laughter
of the two years seeing him come out of the
wall or the doors or the cave and we were
all like.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
What, Yeah, that guy like appears out of nowhere, the
kind of top he was ahead of the British Museum
and he's sort of like top goon. Yeah, he sort
of appears into the scorpion King rips him into five pieces,
and I was like, why.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Is what.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
He's got to show strength?
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, they were trying to they were trying to show
what he could do with his little scorpion limbs. Again,
if no one's seen this, this is essentially the rock
with the scorpion bottom right, he's the top half is
the rock.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
But it's all CGI, is all badly CGI, And at
this point in time, there's really no excuse about how
bad it was. Why it was so bad.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
I'm sure that people working on it would argue, do
you think so.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
I've seen but that's the thing, is like we've seen
so much better.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Why, Yeah, they were working things out back then.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I don't know. I don't know. Okay, she made the
Mummy noise noise.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
So as these fights are going, Evy races in, so
does the Noxy the Moon.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
See they're kind of loves in this battle.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
All the Emo Tep is really thrown Rick under the bus,
which I get, but yeah, whatever, So Rick is able
to kill the Scorpion king, and Emotep and Rick are
both like hanging precariously over this chasm of dead souls
heale essentially yes, and they're trying to pull them the
these souls are trying to pull Rick in Emo Tip
(27:20):
down and the whole place is collapsing. Ev runs in
and saves Rick, while an ox in the Moon abandons
Emo Tip and Emotep is so heartbroken he lets go
and presumably dies.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Who knows.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Anyway, they escape an Oxen Moon gets eaten by the
scare of beetles, but Ev and Rick and Jonathan all
the crew escape via dirigible. Did they ever explain how
they fixed it and got the guests?
Speaker 3 (27:48):
He found something? Right?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I shouldn't ask any questions, is he came through.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah, so they escape and again happily ever after until
the next one comes along.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
I guess right, And there's a third one. And in
this one, we're not gonna talk anything, but I had
to mention it because I love it so much, just
the fact that they are now wealthy people. Oh yeah,
and they're no longer digging, they are now retired, and
they're both very bored. And yes, Rachel Weiss is no
longer there. It is now Maria Bellows. So it's not
(28:23):
Mummy three but the Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which,
by the way, got one star rating.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
We only talk about the finest films on the show.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
And also twelve percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
The lowest we've ever hit because Pocus and Practical Magic.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
We're like at twenty twenty eight percent.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Okay, oh go twelve percent on that, but eighty three
of the Google users like it, so hey, hey, okay,
maybe three percent.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Sorry.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
So anyway, all of that is say, they kind of
jump into a new one where Ali becomes an older
archaeologist and is digging in China and finds the Dragon
Emperor and his vast army in the fields. Whatever I'm
not gonna go do it, but it's fantastic because I
do love again those Asian actors, and I think they're
(29:16):
fantastic and to see them for just a split second
is delightful. But yes, that's the ridiculousness, like, ooh, I
don't know how Rick O'Connell could possibly beat in combat
gently but okay, yeah, the Dragon King who was also
magical and knows a lot of martial arts, but hey,
who cares?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Right?
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Who cares? But yes, that one is also a franchise.
But The Mummy is no longer a motep. They've now
moved on to China, kind of finished as a China
a little bit, but whatever, still a delight to me,
a delight and worth one watch. But I'm not a
second one to talk about. But I just have to
throw that in there.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yeah, I've only seen it once, and the only part
I really remember is when it zooms in on should
be Rachel Weiss, and it's like it's like I'm a
whole new person or something.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
An American actor was not great English accent, say she's
a whole new person, which is true.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
That was one thing I noticed when I watched The
Mummy returns because I think i'd seen that like two
or three times before, but it's been I mean since
it came out. It was it was like a classic
action sequel in the sense that everything was way bigger.
And Rick O'Connell, like I love him, but he was
doing things where I was like, Wow, you've really upped
your game. You caught the knife, like over here, you're
(30:32):
doing all kinds of stunts.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I'm very impressed.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
But right, and also we're not going to talk about
the side of the There was a whole franchise of
The Scorpion King, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Oh boy, that was also a one and done for me.
But if you're looking for a laugh the Scorpion King,
there you go. So all right, now that we've gone
through the plots of these, we did want to talk
about some themes. But first we're gonna pause for one
work a quick forward from a sponsor, and we're back.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Thank you sponsor.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
So I did want to put a disclaimer in here
that maybe I should have put it at the top,
but whatever, neither of these movies, or I guess none
of these movies, if we're gonna count the third one
would be a movie that pops into my head if
somebody asked me, like, name a feminist movie. Like if
I was trying to list feminist movies, I might get.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
To the nineteen ninety nine Mommy, but it would be way, way,
way way down the list.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
But then, you know, honestly, I have some trouble thinking
of feminist movies when people ask me. So I don't know,
but it's definitely not something that I would come to
mind for me until the listener suggested it. The first
one doesn't pass the Bechdel test, I don't think. I
don't think the second one does either. Not that that's
the end all be all of feminist movies, but of note,
(32:05):
and there are definitely some problematic sayings in all of them,
but there are some excellent feminist elements too, particularly in
the character of ev So let's start with her, and
I'll be focusing on the first one. So Evie is
a really competent, smart, funny, determined, adventurous, charming, and decisive character.
(32:28):
Most of the plans she comes up with them on
her own, quickly and under pressure. I also really appreciate
how she's just sort of she's really quick to anger
or to be happy like she's just ya, I don't know,
fiery or so, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
She is feminine in a dress and with her long hair,
but that doesn't hold her back. She still has a
lot of agency and in a flip, her brother Jonathan
is the mess up in their family. Although it's kind
of funny because, especially in the beginning, I feel like
there's this vibe where I guess she think she's the
screw up in the family, but compared to Jonathan, she's
(33:03):
definitely not right. Evie is the one that gets to
Hamnacha first. She's the one that decides to stop the
mummy after she brought him back, but she accepts her
fault in that she's the one to correctly translate something
from the bimbage scholars that they had messed up, and
this is all after they consistently rejected her. She's the
(33:23):
one that helps Jonathan translate an Egyptian inscription that saves them,
and this is while she's being attacked and strangled by
a kno sunermoons mummified half alive corpse. Well, you know,
there's that distracting and I love her reaction when Jonathan
accidentally drops the Book of the Living into that pool,
and as the city is.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Collapsing, she stops and is like, what have you done?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
They have to drag her away because she's just so
passionate about these things.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yeah, she's a scholar. Yeah, and Evie generally serves as
the leader of the group. Obviously, she's the one that
that's like, we need to go dig here instead of
let's do this this way. And Rick is the muscle,
you know. Even in the second one, she does the
same thing. She leads them to wards they need to
go and she's like here, you know, start working, and
then he uses the bigger tools because of course he's man,
(34:12):
and he's comfortable in that position and comfortable following her lead.
The only time Rick takes the lead is during physical
situations or obviously when Av's not there, and he he
pretty much listens to her and trusts her, follows her
lead without complaint, and when they do disagree or argue,
they do as equals. So that's nice.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, yeah, And I mean it is funny because she
is leader and often especially in the second one, which
again I hadn't seen in a very long time, but
he's like, are you do we have to do this,
and she's like this, She's just so adventurous and passionate
about these things, and he's kind of resigned to Okay, okay,
(34:51):
I guess. And I would argue that the first movie,
especially is driven by her and Rick just follows her.
I think she You could make a good argument that
she he's the main character. At the very least, they
kind of share that role of main characters. And even
when Evie is the damsel in distress in the first one,
it is by choice to give the group the best
(35:12):
chance of success. She's not a passive victim. She is
not cow During her imprisonment, she does use her femininity
to kiss Emotep and distract him from killing her friends.
She threatens and vox Binny, which I do love. That
seems she's like always he's like, oh no. She helps
her brother translate the inscription while she's being attacked, and
(35:35):
she's the one that reads the passage that renders the
Mummy as mortal and allows Rick to kill him.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Right. And in the second one, they do blame her
for killing Emotep, and that's why they kidnap her because
they won't revenge against her. They could care less about Rick.
They obviously blame her, as they should, as well as
the fact that when you look at the second one
is her and a knocks on a moon, who are
the protectors of pretty much the realm, whether it's the
ricelet or the Pharaoh. They protect and they were chosen
(36:02):
to protect and fight, so it's kind of interesting to
get that. And yes, she actually gets to fight a
little bit in this one where she has some sore
play and play with size even yeah, of course it
was very obvious it wasn't her during those scenes, but
so nice to think on and of golf. Of course,
we could also talk about the constant use of white
(36:23):
women with dark hair for characters like Neffertiindia and Cleopatra,
but that's a whole other conversation because she is supposed
to be a lineage of that in English as well,
from what I understood from the first one, right, her
mother was Egyptian, her father was.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
In Oh yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
You know whatever, they know, we know all know this
has to be a stretch to tie things together perfectly,
to bring it to one. But yes, in both movies
that she also saves Rick, whether she saves them from
the gallows or she saves them from the pit of
hell obviously, so she is the hero in both of
these things. They also still follow her footsteps in the
second one, and she even has her maternal instincts as
(37:01):
a drive and a push for this one as well
to get her son back. So, yeah, you know, she's
the main character. I would agree with that.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, I definitely think so.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
She's the leader for sure, absolutely, And I did want
to talk about the relationship aspect between Evie and Rick,
because Rick is clearly attracted to more than just her looks,
which is unfortunately kind of rare in these adventure action
adventure movies. He gives her the tools that he stole
(37:33):
because he knows that she's passionate about what she does
and good at what she does, and he wants her
to be able to lead them and find what she
wants to find. And Rick doesn't pursue romance with her
like most male characters from these adventure movies do. He
isn't showing off for her. He's just kind of this consistent, capable, respectful,
(37:55):
kind tender in the way that he follows her and
expects her that's really allowed in male characters in this genre.
And also you do see, like, as we mentioned when
we were doing the plot synopsis, you see Evie kind
of pining after.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Him, which is rare too.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Like normally it's just like it's the guy's perspective and
he and she's just over the moon about him and
so smitten with him, and it's very one dimensional.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
But in this she's like, it's equally.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
You can tell that they're both charmed equally by each other,
which is nice and yeah, pretty pretty rare for this
genre or especially at that time, right, And it does
continue in the second one. You do you see them
build on that, on this trust and like loving and
care and being on this equal ground and having their
(38:49):
like areas of expertise right where they trust that their
partner to handle this part of it or this part
of it, and the very accepting of each other, I
would say, right.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
I think, yeah, in the second one, you definitely see
the relationship of them compromising because they do still go
on adventures. They do go on a dangerous sight digging, yes,
but she gives in by saying, let's not go to
the next one. Now, let's go ahead and say here.
And of course they also have to add that the
Bimbridge scholars have been begging her of course for them now,
(39:24):
so that did equal out. We do get to see
all of that. You see the conversations they have as parents,
but at the same time still being madly in love,
so of course they have to one up that one
as well, So it is good to see that type
of relationship. We also see Jonathan still being a rake,
as they would say, I've been watching Bridger den y'all
it's seeping that language is sleeping in. But yeah, so
(39:48):
you see that as well, and I found that really
of course on par like with everything else, his greed
and his playboy acting, I guess. But it's also fun
to see relationships still intact and him being pretty childish
still and them kind of taking care of him.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, troublemaker for sure. Yes, yes, and I did it.
I did appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
You get to see Evi and Rick separately as being
I would say good parents are very caring parents like protective,
so you do like it's kind of understood often that
you're going to see the mother in those maternal instincts,
but you did with Rick.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
You really saw him.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Being protective and all the paternal protective instincts too, so
that was nice. And yeah, you do have the comparison
of because this whole thing starts with a Knox souder
Moon an Amo Tep trying to be together, although I
guess now after the second one you could argue that
a x suner Moon really wanted power and ultimately, yeah,
(40:53):
and that moment and the end of the second one
where Evie and a Knox Suna Moon are watching there they're.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Husbands, is like, I don't know if is meridamet.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
But you know, lovers in danger and eb decides to
save Rick and a Noxynyum flees. I always thought that
part was interesting, that there's like which one is the
true love and that you know, you still have this
sort of a Oxymum throughout is kind of painted as
this power player who's got something else going on, which
(41:23):
is pretty common among female villains right now.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
The thing is like the first one, she was not
the villain. She was definitely someone you felt sorry for
because we don't see. What we don't see is that
the pharaoh is kind of evil. He keeps her as
a slave essentially, like he calls her protector and we
talk about that, but essentially she has no choice because
we know that her body paint is to show her purity,
that she would only be touched by him, right, And
(41:48):
so she was in love with another man. So it's
kind of a sad story in himself. But at the
same time, he don't become a mummy kill everyone else.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
The moral of the story.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
That's not cool.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
The moral of the story. Yeah, I think we could
end on that. Thanks again to the listener who suggested
this and the blog post lean in Reddress. I know
that that blog post was written after another podcast really
tore into this movie for not being feminists, So we're
just presenting a different point of view.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
We know it's not the most feminist.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
It's definitely not the most feminist. But is this enjoyable
and there are some things to take away from for sure?
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Oh yeah, And like I said at the top, Evie
still holds up. Ev is still a pretty great character.
So if you haven't seen it, we highly recommend it.
Samantha recommends the other two as well.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Go for it, just go ahead and enjoy it. Enjoy
I agree. For get your favorite drink God, I agree.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
And in the meantime, we would love to hear from
you listeners, especially if you've got suggestions for what our
next movies our movie should be, you can email us
at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
can also find us on Instagram as stephone Never Told
You or on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Thanks is always to our super producer Andrew Howard.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Oh, thanks, and.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Thanks to you for listening stephone Never Told You the
protection of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or reeve you listen to your
favorite shows
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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