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1. Who plays Rick O'Connell?
Brendan Fraser
Fraser was known for comedies like Encino Man and George of the Jungle when he took the part, and the noose in the hanging scene was pulled so tight that he briefly blacked out for real. Tom Cruise fronted the 2017 reboot, which went far less well.
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2. Who plays Evelyn Carnahan?
Rachel Weisz
Weisz, an Englishwoman, plays a half-Egyptian scholar whose father was a famous explorer, and she went on to win an Oscar for The Constant Gardener. She skipped the third film, so Maria Bello took over as Evelyn in Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
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3. What is Evelyn's profession?
Librarian
Evelyn works at the Cairo Museum of Antiquities, where her first scene has her toppling a whole room of bookcases like dominoes. The curator keeps her on only because her late parents were the museum's finest patrons.
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4. Who directed The Mummy?
Stephen Sommers
Sommers wrote the script as well and went on to Van Helsing. Universal had spent years trying to revive its 1932 Boris Karloff picture, with Clive Barker, Joe Dante and George Romero all attached at some point, before Sommers pitched it as a romp.
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5. What is the ancient city the expedition seeks?
Hamunaptra
Hamunaptra is the invented City of the Dead where the pharaohs stashed their treasure, and where Rick's Foreign Legion unit was cut to pieces in 1923. Thebes is the real city of the prologue, and Hamunaptra sinks into the sand once the heroes get out.
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6. What is the mummy's name?
Imhotep
Imhotep was high priest of Osiris under Pharaoh Seti I, murdered him with the pharaoh's mistress Anck-su-namun, and was buried alive under a curse never used before. The real Imhotep was a revered Old Kingdom architect and physician, nothing like the villain.
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7. Who plays Imhotep?
Arnold Vosloo
Vosloo is a South African actor who had taken over the Darkman series from Liam Neeson in its sequels. Imhotep speaks hardly any English, so his lines are ancient Egyptian reconstructed by an Egyptologist; Oded Fehr plays the Medjai leader.
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8. What is Evelyn's brother called?
Jonathan
Jonathan is Evelyn's feckless older brother, played by John Hannah, whose light fingers set the whole expedition in motion. Winston is the sozzled pilot who flies them to the city, Terence is the museum's curator, and Beni is Rick's cowardly former comrade.
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9. What does Jonathan pick from Rick's pocket, starting the whole expedition?
A puzzle box
Rick picked the box up at Hamunaptra in 1923, and Jonathan lifts it off him in a Cairo bar before passing it to Evelyn as a find from a dig in Thebes. Inside is a map to the lost city, and the box itself is the key that opens the books buried there.
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10. Which black book is read from to awaken Imhotep?
The Book of the Dead
Evelyn insists that no harm ever came from reading a book, then reads aloud from the black obsidian volume and wakes Imhotep, who brings the plagues of Egypt down on Cairo. The real Book of the Dead is a loose collection of funerary spells, not a single tome.
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11. Which golden book can help stop him?
The Book of Amun-Ra
The golden book sits beneath the statue of Horus, where Evelyn had expected to find the black one, and reading from it lets Jonathan command Imhotep's mummified soldiers. Evelyn then finds the spell that makes Imhotep mortal, so Rick can run him through.
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12. What creatures swarm through the tombs and attack people?
Scarabs
The scarabs were sealed in Imhotep's sarcophagus to devour him slowly, and they pour out once the tomb is opened. The prison warden pockets a jeweled scarab that turns out to be alive; it burrows into his brain and sends him headfirst into a wall.
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13. What animal does Imhotep fear before fully restoring himself?
Cats
The Medjai leader explains that cats guard the underworld and that Imhotep will fear them until he is fully regenerated, which is why a hissing cat sends him swirling away in a cloud of sand. He regenerates by draining the men who opened the chest.
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14. What is the name of the Medjai leader?
Ardeth Bay
Ardeth Bay leads the Medjai, descendants of the pharaoh's bodyguards sworn to keep Imhotep in the ground. The name nods to the 1932 original, in which Boris Karloff's mummy went about under the alias Ardath Bey.
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15. In which country was most of the film shot?
Morocco
Egypt was ruled out over security and insurance worries, so Marrakesh stood in for Cairo and the dunes around Erfoud for Hamunaptra, with the cast taking out kidnapping insurance before they flew. The interiors were built at Shepperton Studios outside London.
