"The Mummy" was a relatively successful action movie which came out in that early May timeslot when the second tier action movies are released. It's summer but it's before Memorial Day when the big blockbuster movies come out. "The Mummy" did surprisingly well, so well that a big budget sequel has been made (and unlike Speed 2, they actually got good writers to do this movie).

"The Mummy Returns" follows the exploits of Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser), former Legionnaire turned relic hunter, and his now-wife Evie Carnahan (Rachel Weisz), knowledgeable in all things ancient Egyptian. They now have a young son, Alex (Freddie Boath), a seven-or-so-year-old precocious child who does not become the most annoying thing in the movie, something quite hard to achieve.

The story begins in ancient Egypt, where The Scorpion King (Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock) is trying to unite the land under his iron rule. But his army is defeated and the remnants are driven out into the harsh desert, to die one by one. Finally, only The Scorpion King remains, and in desperation he sells his soul to Anubis in return for power. Anubis, capricious god that he is, grants his request and The Scorpion King rampages through Egypt, until Anubis changes his mind and imprisons The Scorpion King in a Golden Pyramid, to await a time when he and his army will rise again. That's the five minutes of screen time that The Rock gets in this movie.

Flash forward to the future, 1933 Egypt. Rick and Evie and son are searching one of the pyramids. Evie recently started having these vivid dreams, which have led her here in a quest for some artifact. What they find is some sort of vault of The Scorpion King's ("I thought he was only a legend!" exclaims Evie) with a box containing The Scorpion King's metal wrist guard.

Meanwhile, in the City of the Dead, a rather large group of fanatics dig up their leader, the imprisoned body of Im-Ho-Tep (Arnold Vosloo), encased in lucite or something like that, as seen at the end of the last movie. With the fanatics is a woman who we later learn is the incarnation of Im-Ho-Tep's consort, Anck-Su-Namun (Patricia Velazquez). The fanatics plan to free their leader, retrieve The Scorpion King's wrist guard which will lead them to The Scorpion King's lair. Then Im-Ho-Tep will defeat The Scorpion King and claim Anubis' army, which he will use to rule the world!

But, Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr), the semi-religious leader of a secret sect whose mission is to stop Im-Ho-Tep, is a spy in the fanatics' camp and overhears their plans. He rushes to England to warn Rick and Evie but only arrives just in time to help fend of an attack by the fanatics, who manage to kidnap Evie. Rick and Ardeth, along with Alex and Evie's brother Jonathan (John Hannah), manage to rescue Evie, held at the British Museum. But they lose Alex, who put on The Scorpion King's wrist guard and now can't get it off. Now it's a race, as Rick and company chase after the now revived Im-Ho-Tep and his fanatics.

I think the sequel is better than the original. About the same in terms of action and excitement, but more characterization and better dialog. Part of it is that it builds upon the first movie -- all the main characters and their actors are back. Also, Rick has less screen time than in the first movie, which gives more screen time to the other characters and helps flesh them out more.

This movie builds upon the first one, so much so that the characters are not even really introduced. So if you haven't the first movie you have to learn things on the fly and you'll miss some of the references. But it also means that we don't waste any screen time (and this movie is over two hours long) explaining the character backgrounds.

The other blemish in the movie is the excessive use of computer generated imagery (CGI). The first one has a lot of CGI, this one has at least as much. But whereas the first one tended to have smaller CGI effects and a lot of effects in poor light conditions, the sequel goes for grand effects and full daylight. Whole CGI pyramids and eden and a river valley, entire scenes with just CGI and the actors. There is so much CGI and it is so ambitious that it is not as seamless as in the first movie. But that's not a major part of the movie unless you really loved the CGI of the first one.

In summary, if you've seen the first movie and liked it, you'll like this movie too. If you only liked the action, then it's much the same the second time around and it's not very original. But the characters are more defined, the dialog is better, and the story is better. Also, if you never pay attention to the plot of an action movie, then you can watch "The Mummy Returns" even if you haven't seen the first one. All in all, another good early-May movie.