The sands will rise. The heavens will part. The power will be unleashed

Stephen Sommers, the writer and director of last year's universally panned DEEP RISING, is back again. This time he unleashes a cinematic plague on his audiences with THE MUMMY, a lame INDIANA JONES wannabe.

A remake in name only of the 1932 Boris Karloff classic, THE MUMMY features a host of gross and frightening special effects. The movie never figures out what it wants to be when it grows up. It is alternately: a parody, an adventure, a horror movie and an old fashioned B movie. Universal had the project in development for years before they gave it to Sommers. They should have waited for a better script and director.

Sommers's script, which is filled with logical gaps, is so confusing that you begin to wonder if the print has missing hieroglyphic subtitles. Certainly the story can be exasperatingly baffling, as if it were not intended that mere mortals should be able to follow it.

The plot has to do with a high priest who was mummified alive after being caught red-handed with the pharaoh's sweetheart. More formally addressed as Imhotep, High priest of Osiris (Arnold Vosloo), the Mummy comes back from the dead in 1923 and unleashes plagues on the world. This all happens because an Indiana Jones character called Rick O'Connell goes looking for treasure where the Mummy sleeps. Never disturb a man resting comfortably in his sarcophagus.

The only potentially promising part of the movie is the casting of Brendan Fraser as Rick. Fraser, who has delivered strong performances in every film he has made until now, isn't the least bit interesting in THE MUMMY. Miscast in an underwritten role, he never figures out what to do with his character.

Cast opposite Fraser is Rachel Weisz as librarian and Egyptologist Evelyn and SLIDING DOORS's John Hannah as her imbecilic brother Jonathan.

If any of the characters were worth caring about or possessed any depth, the story might have a chance. But the script plays like an outline that was never filled in.

A few parts of the movie do come alive with a little spark of intelligence. A drunken Evelyn tries to explain what she is doing in such a dangerous situation. "I know what you're asking," she tells Rick. "How did a country like this get in a girl like you?" The beauty of this seemingly mixed up line is that it is precisely what she means.

Another episode that demonstrates some charm shows a terrified man trying to save himself from the attacking Mummy, who looks like a creature from ALIENS with a bad set of dentures. Holding up a series of icons from a cross to a Star of David, he's willing to profess belief in whatever religion will protect him from the monster.

"We are in serious trouble," says Rick to his fellow treasure hunters. "We are in very serious trouble." And so are you if you're unlucky enough to find yourself stuck in a theater playing this movie. The picture deserves its own mummification.

THE MUMMY runs too long at 2:08. It is rated PG-13 for gross and frightening images that will scare kids prone to nightmares. For those with strong stomachs, the film would be acceptable for those 12 and up.