(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

The Mummy movies are a lot of fun. Who could hate a young, charming Brendan Fraser having the time of his life fighting mummies and raiding tombs? Clearly this was a sign of a long, happy, trouble-free career for the man!

Oh, I’ve gone and made myself sad… let’s just cut right to it and talk about Imhotep.

Imhotep is the villain of the first two films of the series, and he really helps set the tone. Things get a lot less funny and a lot more darker whenever he’s on the scene, changing the tone from “fun, goofy Indiana Jones-esque romp” to a more overtly horror tone. This makes sense, seeing as he’s a soul-sucking undead monster based on one of the classic Universal monsters… but that’s really a very surface-level look at Imhotep. You see, unlike Ahmanet, the previous mummy covered on here, Imhotep has a real personality and motivations beyond being a simple villain hellbent on domination. In fact, Imhotep doesn’t want to conquer the world at all. He has a very simple, even sweet goal that makes him instantly relatable and tragic: all he wants is the woman he loves.

Actor: Arnold Vosloo plays Imhotep to perfection. He hits all the right villain notes whenever the scene calls for it: he can be scary, intimidating, badass, hammy, emotional, and even sexy. The last one’s a given when you spend a lot of the movie either shirtless or wearing a revealing robe, you know? I’m guessing one of the reasons the third movie failed so hard is because he wasn’t there to bring his own brand of awesomeness to the table, though I wouldn’t know because I’ve never watched the third film and like to pretend everything in the franchise ended happily after the first two films and there was nothing but Scorpion King spin-offs until the end of time.

Motivation/Goals: Imhotep is such an odd villain. Despite being a very powerful mystical being who could bring the world to its knees if he wished it, Imhotep is motivated solely by love. All he really wants is to be reunited with his lover Anck-Su-Namun, and he goes to great lengths to achieve this goal, lengths that do put him beyond the pale but also add a layer of tragedy to him.

The second film has him awakened by a cult to try and steal a supernatural army from Dwayne “The Scorpion King” Johnson, which ends up leading to him becoming far less sympathetic and a lot more cliche in terms of goals, though the romantic and sympathetic qualities are there still. They’re just now forced to share screentime with character traits that Imhotep didn’t really have in the first film, and while they don’t ruin him by any means and they help play into his ultimate tragedy, it just feels kind of sad they made Imhotep return and use him for a “take over the world” plot when his first outing had him really stand out as a villain in a big-budget action movie that didn’t have such a trite motive.

Personality: Imhotep is a pretty nice and friendly guy, for an ancient mummy. In the first film especially, he’s awful open about his plans to Beni and even keeps his word to him, and just in general he’s rather affable… unless, of course, you get in his way, in which case he will kill you without hesitation. He ends up dropping a lot of his more affable personality in the second film, which does come to bite him in the ass. It’s honestly pretty sad, because all that really ends up making him a villain is the manner in which he goes about his goals. Obviously bringing his loved one back would be a grim affair no matter what, but he goes way too far, with his desire to be with the woman he loves driving him to disturbing lengths to be back with her. In fact, the fact that he is such a loving man really plays into his ultimate tragedy, as he continuously suffers for love and in the end his suffering is rendered moot. Maybe villains who can’t comprehend love are better off after all.

Final Fate: In The Mummy Returns, Imhotep is clinging to a ledge and begs for his lover Anck-Su-Namun to save him. Instead, she flees, and Imhotep sees a similar situation happening with Rick and Evy; it ends exactly as you’d expect a dangerous situation with a protagonist couple to end in a cheesy adventure film. Imhotep looks to them with a look filled with jealousy and respect, and then lets go of the ledge, falling into the underworld. It’s a rather depressing and tragic fate that really highlights that for all the evil he did, Imhotep really only wanted to be with the woman he loved, and after all the pain and suffering he endured trying to make that happen, it ended up being all for nothing. It also ends up being ironic and karmic; throughout the film, he shows a lack of empathy for those serving under him, so it ends up being fitting the only person he cares about genuinely would leave him in his time of need.

Best Scene: Imhotep’s giant sandstorm from the first movie. It has become an iconic signature scene of the trilogy for a reason, after all.

Best Quote: So I didn’t exactly find a great quote from Imhotep himself on Wikiquote (my usual source), but I did find a quote from Arnold Vosloo himself that I think sums up Imhotep quite nicely:

“I’m so thankful that all that stuff made it to the screen, because a lot of the time studio executives say that there’s no time, or ask why we should feel sympathy for this bad guy. I joke that I’m the romantic lead in the movie, I just happened to pick the wrong girl. Imhotep is kind of the tragic villain, I guess, and a lot of people have come up to me and said I was hating you, but then I reach a point when I was feeling sorry for you too. It’s those different facets that help explain why this film is such a success.“

Final Thoughts & Score: For such a bunch of silly adventure films, they sure did go hard when it came to giving us a fantastic villain. Imhotep is, to be fair, not the most complex character in the world; I think being in a film like The Mummy kind of necessitates you being rather simple. But much like the movies he inhabits, he takes his simple concept and runs with it, elevating it into being something greater.

I love how he’s a villain not motivated by power, greed, or ambition, but a desperate desire to be with the person he loves most. In these sort of Indiana Jones-esque archaeological adventure films, you kind of expect to have the main villain or villains being motivated by greed, or power, or something to that effect, but here those motivations are relegated to side villains and our big bad is simply someone who really wants the girl he lived and died for in his arms again. It adds a layer of tragedy to Imhotep, which is only exacerbated in the sequel and then comes to his ultimate conclusion with his final death.

I think Imhotep really shines where a mummy like Princess Ahmanet ultimately failed: he has a clear, defined personality as well as a more relatable goal than “destroy the world.” As much as I enjoyed Princess Ahmanet from the reboot, my wife was right to point out in her guest spot on Psycho Analysis that her personality boils down to being ambitious and graceful, and not much else. Imhotep, on the other hand, shows a lot of emotion, even to his final look to Rick and Evy, which says so much without a single word being uttered. Ahmanet never really got moments like that, but that’s because she was stuck in a movie with an attention whore like Tom Cruise; Imhotep is in a movie with certified nice guy Brendan Fraser, so of course he’s gonna get his fair share of development.

IMHO Imhotep deserves nothing less than a 9/10. He’s the perfect villain for the cheesy fun of the first two Mummy movies, but he’s also something more, something richer than these movies deserved, and is emblematic of what made those movies so special and beloved: how, despite their flaws, there was just some magic there that allowed the films to rise above their simplistic popcorn action reimaginings of a classic monster movie to become something that even decades after the fact people still love and cherish to this day. The only thing holding him back from a perfect ten is the fact that the second film doesn’t do him quite as much justice; I have to say, the whole “world domination” thing looks better on an ambitious royal like Ahmanet than it does on a tragic romantic like Imhotep. Still, there’s no denying that Imhotep is a cool, fun villain for some cool, fun movies.