The Mummy Returns

You have to admire them for getting a sequel into the cinemas just two years after the first Mummy became the surprise hit of "Phantom Menace summer" in 1999. And that's with all the key cast members reunited under the direction of Stephen Sommers. This sense of continuity pulls the franchise in line with the Indiana Jones films, to which this owes so much with its tomb-raiding themes, period colour and deft mix of comedy and action. To praise it faintly as more of the same does a disservice to the slick bravado of Sommers and the technical wizardry of Industrial Light and Magic, who created the screen-dominating CGI effects. If you liked The Mummy's old-fashioned thrills and state-of-the-art digital monsters, you won't be disappointed - indeed, there's an army of dog-like Anubis warriors that stretches as far as the eye can see. (If only David Lean had had a laptop.) And Rachel Weisz has been unashamedly sexed up for those who get a kick out of gold bikinis and girl-fighting.