History Film / TheMummyTrilogy

* ThePunishment: The Hom-Dai curse that turned Imhotep in an abomination was supposed to be AFateWorseThanDeath. But it also gave him immortality, control over the elements and ability to summon the ten plagues of Egypt, superhuman strength, telekinesis, and made him basically invulnerable (unless if the Book of the Dead or greater entities like Anubis made him mortal again).

* ThePunishment: The Hom-Dai curse that turned Imhotep in an abomination was supposed to be AFateWorseThanDeath. But it also gave him immortality, control over the elements and ability to summon the ten plagues of Egypt, superhuman strength, telekinesis, and made him basically invulnerable (unless if the Book of the Dead or greater entities like Anubis made him mortal again).

** By the beginning of the second movie, however, they are running their own full scale digs. The films also take place in the early days of archaeology when training wasn't as important as the personal funds to go tomb hunting.

During the long wait for a third, we got the SpinOff[=/=]{{Prequel}} ''Film/TheScorpionKing''. It had Wrestling/TheRock fight Egyptians and sorcerers and stuff like that. It had pretty much nothing to do with the original two films, but had the same approach to humour and the action scenes in particular were considered awesome, if only for the fact that this is what happens to ''anything'' involving Wrestling/DwayneJohnson. ''Film/TheScorpionKing'' itself got a direct-to-DVD pre-prequel, ''The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior'', and two sequels, ''The Scorpion King 3: Battle For Redemption'' and ''The Scorpion King 4: Quest For Power''. The existence of a fourth movie means that Universal made a sequel to a sequel to a prequel (to the original ''Scorpion King'') of the prologue of a sequel (''The Mummy Returns'') of a remake (''The Mummy'') that is heavily influenced by a semi-reboot (''The Mummy's Hand''). Is your head hurting yet? A fifth Scorpion King film called "The Scorpion King: Book of Souls" was released in 2018 even though the main Mummy series had already been rebooted by that point.

* CoolPet: Ardeth's falcon, Horus, who is also useful for communicating with the other Medjai.

The first movie was a loose remake of the [[Film/TheMummy1932 original film]]. Instead of being straight horror, it was more of an action-adventure with a dash of comedy--not unlike the ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' or ''[[Film/LaraCroftTombRaider Tomb Raider]]'' style of action movies. Despite being based on a straight-horror, ultimately the movies owe more to ''Indiana Jones'' than anything else, making for effective light entertainment.

During the long wait for a third, we got the SpinOff[=/=]{{Prequel}} ''Film/TheScorpionKing''. It had Wrestling/TheRock fight Egyptians and sorcerers and stuff like that. It had pretty much nothing to do with the original two films, but had the same approach to humour and the action scenes in particular were considered awesome, if only for the fact that this is what happens to ''anything'' involving Wrestling/DwayneJohnson. ''Film/TheScorpionKing'' itself got a direct-to-DVD pre-prequel, ''The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior'', and two sequels, ''The Scorpion King 3: Battle For Redemption'' and ''The Scorpion King 4: Quest For Power''. The existence of a fourth movie means that Universal made a sequel to a sequel to a prequel (to the original ''Scorpion King'') of the prologue of a sequel (''The Mummy Returns'') of a remake (''The Mummy''). Is your head hurting yet? A fifth Scorpion King film called "The Scorpion King: Book of Souls" was released in 2018 even though the main Mummy series had already been rebooted by that point.

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused]] with the aforementioned 1932 film featuring Creator/BorisKarloff as Imhotep, or the 1959 Film/HammerHorror film featuring Creator/ChristopherLee and Creator/PeterCushing, or the 1969 Egyptian art film more usually called ''The Night of Counting the Years'' (which Creator/MartinScorsese once mentioned really liking).

[[WesternAnimation/TheMummyTheAnimatedSeries An animated series loosely based on the films]], set shortly after ''The Mummy Returns'', debuted in 2001 on [=KidsWB=] and ran for two seasons.

%%* AdventurerOutfit

%%* TheAnimatedSeries: Came after the second movie.

%%* BadassBookworm: Evelyn has this in spades.
%%* BaldOfEvil: Imhotep.
%%* TheBaroness: Choi. The ressurrected Anck-su-namun in the second film too.

%%* BigFancyHouse: Rick and Evy own one, as seen in the sequel.
%%* BigOMG: O'Connel's reaction to the sandwall.
%%* BlindWithoutEm: Mr Burns.
* BodyHorror: The flesh burrowing scarabs.

** Seems to run in the family, Alex does it with freaking giant stone pillars in the sequel. Although it makes you wonder what exactly those pillars were holding up.
* BottomlessMagazines: In the real-world 1930's, six shooters shot six times. In fact the Single-Action Army revolvers they were using had to be loaded and unloaded one shot at a time. In the film you get a full twelve shots with one of those bad boys.
** Weirdly enough it also contains a notable inversion in the opening shootout. Rick draws twin Colt M1911s, fires about four shots and they both run dry (slides locked back and all) he throws them aside and draws two more Colt .45s. A strange case of Limited Magazines, as the Colt M1911 typically carries 7 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber.

%%* BritainIsOnlyLondon

%%* ButtMonkey: Beni from the first movie, and Jonathan in general.

%%* CardCarryingVillain
%%** The Dragon Emperor.

%%* CoolPet: Ardeth's falcon.

%%* CrossoverCosmology

%%* FlashBack: See also AncientEgypt.

%%* GunsAkimbo: The preferred method of combat in the O'Connell family.
%%* HappilyMarried: Rick and Evy in the second and third movies.

* HeroicBloodshed: The trilogy is basically a pastiche of Hong Kong Action cinema conventions attached to a 1930's Pulp-Novel, with this genre being the most obvious homage in the first two movies.

%%* IShouldWriteABookAboutThis
%%* JungleOpera
%%* LeadTheTarget

* ThePunishment: The Hom-Dai curse that turned Imhotep in an abomination was supposed to be AFateWorseThanDeath. But it also gave him immortality, control over the elements and ability to summon the ten plagues of Egypt, superhuman strength, telekinisis and made him basically invulnerable (unless if the Book of the Dead or greater entities like Anubis made him mortal again).
%%* ProperLady: Evelyn. Made into a SpiritedYoungLady in the sequels.

%%* SycophanticServant
%%** Beni, in the first movie.
%%** Imhotep, after a fashion, in the second.

%%* SpinOff: ''The Scorpion King''.

%%* TentativeLight

%%* ThisWayToCertainDeath
%%* ThrowAwayGuns
%%* TwoFistedTales

* BugBuzz: The sounds the scarabs make are seriously scary, especially when closing in on somebody.

* HappilyMarried: Rick and Evy in the second and third movies.
* [[SheCleansUpNicely He Cleans Up Nicely]]: Evy has this reaction the first time she sees Rick clean-shaven and dressed tastefully after bailing him out of prison.
** Evy gets a nice little moment for herself after the passenger barge sinks, and she goes native at a Bedouin trading post, switching the HotLibrarian look for clingly black dresses and a sheer veil.

* IdiotBall: As Rick lampshades, what the hell was Alex ''thinking'' when he decided to go and uncover the Emperor?! It's not like his family haven't had a long history dealing with curses and mummies... does it ''ever'' end well?!

* SadlyMythtaken: Imhotep was an actual historical figure.
** though the theory is due to the REAL Imhotep existed long before Seti I (and was awesome), that this one is an Imhotep named by overly ambitious parents.

* {{Sidekick}}: Jonathan. Similarly, Izzy in the second film, who is a cowardly sidekick who is black (and not, mercifully, a [[EthnicScrappy Black Cowardly Sidekick]]).

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: The RealLife Imhotep was one of the most respected Egyptians who ever lived, the first engineer and architect, inventor of modern medicine (thousands of years before Hippocrates), a pretty unambiguously [[TheGoodChancellor good chancellor]], and ''deified'' after his death (something normally reserved only for the greatest pharaohs). He's the BigBad of the first two movies.
** Except that real Imhotep lived long before the reign of Seti I, so this would have been just some guy named after him.

It was a cosmopolitan series which took advantage of its 30's period elements. The first movie was a loose remake of the [[Film/TheMummy1932 original film]] but with more {{body horror}} and [[BloodierAndGorier gore]]; it was gradually phased-out in favor of CGI extravaganzas and more jokes.