Although the film The Mummy reached for an Indiana Jones aura, it captured more of a Goonies feel -but the special effects were great. The dialogue was quirky, the acting was so-so and the plot left many unanswered questions, but the action sequences and scary moments made it fun to watch.

The story begins 3,000 years prior to 1923 in Egypt. A pharaoh catches his wife with his highest ranking-scribe, Imhotep, and, although the pharaoh gets murdered, his people catch Imhotep and cast a curse on his tomb and on Hamunaptra, the city of the dead. They round up all of Imhoteps's priests and mummify them alive. Then, they put him in the casket alive with flesh-eating bugs.

The story then jumps ahead to a battle in the same city in 1923. American Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) is defending the city for a rea

son we never know. He gets captured and is held prisoner in Cairo until Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) and her brother Jonathan (John Hannah) get him released to help them search for the tomb.

Evelyn, a history expert, is searching for Hamunaptra, which is rumored to house lots of treasure, including the most valuable artifact of all - The Book of Amon-Ra. Apparently, Rick is the only one they know who can take them to the city. On their journey, however, they meet up with a group of Americans hunting for the same tomb.

Both teams arrive at the city and mess around a little too much in the tomb. They manage to unleash the curse, wake the mummy and literally make all hell break loose.

The mummy then has to kill everyone who opened the tomb and take their body parts so he can become whole again. He takes his first victim's eyes and tongue but is stopped before he can get the skin. Now the job of Rick, Evelyn and Jonathan is to put this immortal creature to rest before it brings evil to the entire world.

The special effects are what make the film. For example, the half-decomposed body of the mummy still has bugs crawling around inside it. Equally spectacular are the several steps of the curse, such as swarms of locusts (coming to an Athens near you), swarms of bees, darkness over Egypt, fountains running with blood, and disgusting boils on the zombie-like townspeople.

These are the reasons to see The Mummy, but they alone can't make it into a great film. Many things didn't add up. Like why didn't anyone find this tomb before-hand? How come a bunch of American gold-hunters could find it right away? How come the mummies could be killed with a gun (after they came back to life)?

These things may seem insignificant, but they added up quickly and became very distracting. There were also many lame parts, mostly between Evelyn and Rick.

The Mummy is like a tootsie pop - you have to break away the layers to get to the gooey, yummy center. Mmmmm, yummy mummy.