Bugonia
The ending is stupendously goofy, but in a way that suits the movie.
I could not disagree more. To me the ending
basically ruined the movie. For nearly 2 hours we watch this tense, uncomfortable and grounded depiction of what happens when someone falls into conspiracism and misinformation, and how dangerous those people are to themselves and to those around them. And then the ending is right out of a stoner comedy, and feels like it undercuts the entire film. The electrocution scene and the ending might as well be from completely different movies.
In other movies I saw
The Mummy (1999) for the first time, 7/10
It's the Brendan Fraser classic about a group of various people entering a lost tomb of a mummy, and then all your usual mummy stuff ensues: curses, traps, treasure, action, the works. It's a movie characterized by contrasting opposites: it holds up incredibly well in some areas, and really poorly in others. The acting is all really good, but the script gets increasingly weak as the movie goes along. Its sets and practical stunts look fantastic, but the CG could not be more apparent.
Let's start with the good: Brendan Fraser is great, and in a more just world this should have catapulted his career into the stratosphere. He's got that Han Solo, Bruce Campbell style of charisma perfect for an action lead: competent, but not overpowered. Gruff, but not crass. Charming without seeming he's trying too hard. The acting overall is really good, and everyone knows exactly how to play this campy, over the top stuff. All the sets and practical effects look great, and the score is really great too. It achieves that earnest, childlike spirit of adventure in a similar way that
Pirates of the Caribbean did a few years after this. It being also a period piece helps it from feeling dated stylewise. There's no winking to the camera, but it's still very tongue in cheek. It's basically the perfect movie for 11-year old boys: it's fun, action-packed, a little scary and a little sexy but not too much. I was grinning like an idiot in the first 15 minutes at just the sheer joyful energy of it.
Sadly it's not all roses here. For all its campy silliness, the script definitely occasionally fails to straddle the line, and falls into just plain stupid and ridiculous territory. Characters do the Evil Dead thing of sticking their hands in ancient artefacts and places with nary a thought or consideration. Weighty consequences are set up, but not properly paid off because this is a PG-13 movie. The movie starts out very grounded, but by the end a lot of its action devolves into being borderline cartoonish. The CG effects are probably top of the line for 1999 and they do look decent for their age, but the way in how they're constantly at the forefront and not even attempted to be hidden only draws more attention to their imperfections. For all its old-timey fun it's also old-fashioned in other ways: Rachel Weisz's character is pretty much just a stock damsel in distress/love interest, and the romance angle is really undercooked. It also feels like it escalates beyond its grasp: only about halfway through the movie we're already witnessing downright apocalyptic disasters brought on by the Mummy, but it feels like the film goes "Well shit, we're already at maximum and there's nowhere to go", and backpedals on how serious the threat is supposed to be. It smacks of a script that needed a bit more time to be ironed out.
It's still really fun and a classic for a reason, but it's definitely showing its age at this point.
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