The Mummy Returns is far superior to the The Mummy. Of course, that's like saying that a colostomy bag is far superior to a bedpan.

Ha ha! Oh, I jest, but seriously though, I haven't had this much fun in a movie since the beginning of Will Smith's film career. And to think I only went to see it because I was dragged by my girlfriend. You see, she lusts after Brendan Fraser, and she likes the opportunity to see our faces together so she can more effectively pretend that I'm him when we're being intimate.

Okay, the movie starts out with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as the Scorpion King, beating the living snot out of an army of Egyptian type folks. It was a dramatic departure from his WWF character, the likes of which hasn't been seen since he appeared on that episode of That '70s Show where he beat the snot out of the other wrestler, or that episode of Voyager where he beat the snot out of Seven of Nine.

Basically the Scorpion King is trying to rock the world like a hurricane with his army of regular guys who are not the slightest bit undead. The Rock screams, he sweats, he impales guys with his sword and tosses guys around with his shield and glistening muscles. I'll never understand why when Dwayne Johnson does it, it's considered laughable by the critics, but when Russell Crowe does it, he wins an Oscar.

Anyway, the Rock gets his ass kicked, as one is wont to do when going into combat with an army of guys who aren't horrible otherworldly creatures of some sort. Luckily for him, with his dying breath, Dwayne makes a deal with evil and trades in that tarnished old soul for a brand new army of computer animated doglike things. My girlfriend starts tapping her foot impatiently and glaring at her watch. "Enough of this Rock bullshit. Where's my Monkeybone?"

With his new army of of bad boys running wild, the Scorpion King returns to the scene of his previous ass bekickitude and fully kills everybody that he sees. When everyone is all good and dead, the warranty runs out on his army of dogboys, and evil cashes in the Rock's soul, thus ending his brief involvement in this movie, and drawing the flashback to a climactic close.

Flash forward to the age of Indiana Jones. Brendan Fraser is approaching the spray-on-spider-web filled temple set of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I predict a giant rolling boulder. My girlfriend's heart goes all aflutter at the sight of Fraser's butt. Just when the mood builds to the apex of expecting-a-cat-scare intensity, Junior leaps from a dark shadow into our collective faces.

As far as kids go, especially kids who are lovable sidekicks, this one not only failed to be unforgivably annoying, but also managed to actually be endearing. Why can't America make kids like this? Great Britain is years ahead of us in children manufacturing technology. This kid can read ancient Egyptian, speak with 5,000 year old mummies, and not shit himself when a giant Nubian guard wants to cut his crumpets off. The Mexicans have kids that can operate jetpacks and defeat their own superhuman evil robot clones in a showdown.

What can our kids do? See dead people. Big freakin' deal.

The most amazing part about the kid being so cool is that he does it despite the fact that he has the worst parents in the world. Oh sure Brendan and Evelyn talk a good game, but when it comes right down to it, they're more concerned with thrusting their tongues into each others orifices than they are with proper day care.

My girlfriend's pulse races and she breaks out into a hot swooning sweat, while elsewhere, a bunch of weird monk guys dig up the body of the Mummy from where it was... buried, or... captured, or... whatever the hell happened to it at the end of the first movie. I don't remember. It was two years ago, and I was drunk at the time.

From the look of his amber casing, I'd reckon that the Mummy got himself caught in some tree sap which then hardened and preserved his body until scientists could extract his DNA and make a the Mummy theme park where the attractions kill the guests.

I think the coolest thing about the Mummy is how level headed and goal oriented he is. Upon being freed from the mass of ear wax that he had been captive in for the better part of the past decade, he doesn't just roar like some kind of freaked animal or start slashing people apart just for the sport of it. No, the first thing he does is ask what year it is. Like he's gonna miss an appointment.

From here on out, the movie pretty much turns into a video game all the way up to the final battle with the level boss.

I'm going to take the rest of this into Spoilerville. If you haven't seen The Mummy Returns yet, you might want to. It's a helluva fun ride, and it leads to some really weird role playing afterwards. Well, I can't complain. At least I don't have to wear the Canadian Mountie costume anymore.

Here's where I get confused. The Pouchy Monk wants to take over the world, right? But to do it, he needs to get his hands on an army of digital canines. And the only way that he can do that is by defeating the Scorpion King at the end of the movie. The only way he can do that is by resurrecting the Mummy and having him do it for him.

Okay, the plan sounds good so far, Poucho, but then what happens when the Mummy wins? Does he just give you the army and go to Disneyland? Either there's a gigantic hole in your plan, or I was once again too drunk to pick up on the subtle plot development of a The Mummy film.

They really do love their "faces made of particles" effects in these movies, don't they? Remember in the first one, when the face made of sand swallowed up the airplane? That was almost as cool as in this one when the face made out of water swallowed up the hot air balloon. Or when the Scorpion King's face made out of smoke screamed and fell into the pyramid on the winds of change.

They like their digital crowd scenes too. Oooh, look! There's a million guys on horses! There's a million guys with swords! There's a million guys with dogs for faces! There's million undead midgets! Speaking of midgets, didja notice the subtle Dr. Strangelove reference? Well, maybe it wasn't subtle. My girlfriend noticed it, and she was sponging drool off of her shirt at the time.

And did anybody think for one damn second that Evelyn was really dead when the other chick stabbed her? I mean really. Even for one second? How cool would that have been if they had really really killed a main good guy character? To their credit, they did do some other things that I didn't expect, such as having the black guy with the bad teeth make it all the way through the movie without being shot in the ass.

Speaking of Evelyn and that chick, let's hear it for movies where two hot women in skimpy Luxor cocktail waitress costumes go all Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on each other. It just goes to show that you don't need multi-million dollar effects in a scene to make it stand out in your summer blockbuster. All you need is a girl who can kick somebody behind her in the face, over her shoulder, without turning around. Damn.

This movie has a little something for everybody to touch themselves over.