3. Evelyn OConnell The Mummy Returns
Hot on Elizabeth Swanns heels as a suddenly kick-ass film heroine, Evelyn O'Connells transformation is even more dramatic because if anything, she tops the former in terms of out-and-out uselessness. Throughout the first film, its made apparent that Brendan Frasers Rick is seven shades of awesome with his wisecracking, fisticuffs and gunplay. By contrast, Evelyn seems a buzz-kill, cast in that most stereotypical of buzz-killing roles, a librarian. See image above. Shes the very definition of a convenient burden all prim and proper, utterly defenceless and prone to being kidnapped to raise the stakes. After a while, the audience are left rolling their eyes with her, wishing for the world to hurry up and invent walkie-talkies so Evelyn can stay somewhere safe while Rick does the proper adventuring. Its no wonder the sequel writers threw a collective screw it and decided to make her toughen her up in the most convenient way possible. After all, whats more convenient than hastily drawn movie mythology?
Yes, thats the gambit they use it turns out that Evelyn is a descendent of Nefertiti, an Egyptian Princess and sai-brandishing hellion from the same time as series antagonist Imhotep. Who knew? Yet shoe-hornings aside, the film makes a good job of making Rachel Wieszs fight scenes as enjoyable as possible shes a good actress and she sells the hell out of her action sequences as her character wades into numerous fight scenes before duelling her rival Anck-su-Namun in a no-holds-barred and utterly frenetic sequence. This bad-ass reveal is simple action movie dream logic in its purest form, and despite my tone, I really did honestly love it. The Mummy franchise (even its woeful third instalment) always played fast and loose with ancient mythology it just wanted everyone to have a good time, and keeping Evelyn as a useless bystander would have dragged the film down. So frankly, I give kudos to the film for having the balls to tighten up a part of its narrative in the least subtle way possible, and you can't really get less subtle than actually resurrecting a character and giving them new powers.