The Mummy: Quest for the Lost Scrolls (2002) – DVD

*/**** Image A Sound B- Extras C-

by Walter Chaw Universal and Kids’ WB present the abominable and derivative The Mummy: Quest for the Lost Scrolls, the first three episodes of a tragically bad action-adventure cartoon based on characters from Stephen Sommers’s live-action blockbuster The Mummy Returns. After Aryan-izing Fraser’s Rick O’Connell and his irritating moppet Alex (who is, predictably, the star of the show), the animators proceed to rip-off sources as disconcertingly varied as The Evil Dead, Star Wars, and Sommers’s Mummy saga, natch, all while perpetuating myths of the wilting femme and the foppish Brit that, shockingly, its adult counterparts never did.

Quest for the Lost Scrolls‘ central conceit is that little Alex has a magic armband stuck on his wrist that occasionally does magical things for which his anger and/or id appear to be responsible, Monkey Shines-like. Rather than channelling that power for good (or to find the titular lost scrolls), he and his swashbuckling parents (and fey British uncle) go globetrotting in order to find the scrolls, which hold the secret of how to ditch the bracelet. Oh, the scrolls also hold the secret of ridding the world of the mummy Imhotep. Or something.

Its animation extraordinarily bad and its mythology casually confused (tell me again what a minotaur is doing inside a pyramid?), the project is weak from voice work (John Schneider fills in for Brendan Fraser) to narrative to craft, so obviously a pre-fabricated money grab (based on the same, it occurs to me) that it nearly works as a parody of the kind of ignorance and greed that too often passes for creativity nowadays. Rushing from crashes to explosions to stupid sight gags and flat jokes, “The Mummy” cartoon series is all but indistinguishable from the “Justice League of America” garbage my generation obediently lapped up every day after school, leading me to believe that the ultimate fate of this bullstuff is to be rediscovered with cold surprise in a decade by child fans too daft right now to be discerning. Poor souls–be discerning for them.

THE DVD
Universal releases The Mummy: Quest for the Lost Scrolls on DVD in a video transfer that preserves the broadcast aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Colours are bright and vibrant although there’s really not much that can be done to dress up the stunning incompetence of the animation. We’re not talking sweatshop quality, we’re talking circus animals with paintbrushes and stencils. A Dolby 2.0 surround audio mix is flat and unimpressive. Rear channels get minimal workout while the dialogue, every bit of it shouted, is tinny and weak in the low end. Imhotep’s throaty rumble (provided by the ubiquitous Jim Cummings) should’ve given me the only pleasure in watching this shipwreck, but alas, ’twas more of a hummingbird stutter. The disc is rounded out with a few lacklustre diversions for the little ones: a banal “Trivia Challenge” (correct answers grant access to an Easter egg’d episode of “The Mummy”–I’d had enough by that point); a couple of pages of watered-down “Egyptology;” entirely worthless “Character Files”; a grotesque sing-along; and trailers for the WB’s Saturday-morning “The Mummy: Secrets of the Medji”, the GameBoy video games “The Mummy” and “Monster Force”, and the show itself.

65 minutes; NR; 1.33:1; English DD 2.0 (Stereo); English SDH, French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; Region One; Universal