The Mummy star Brendan Fraser has defended the “janky” CGI in the film’s sequel, The Mummy Returns
The action-adventure movies were released between 1999 and 2008 and starred Fraser as the lead, Rick O’Connell.
In The Mummy Returns (2001), Dwayne Johnson made his acting debut as the Scorpion King, a role that inspired the following year’s prequel film The Scorpion King.
Unfortunately, The Mummy Returns is known in part for its notoriously bad CGI work on Johnson, dspite grossing over $435m at the global box office.
Asked about this in a GQ video interview, however, Fraser defended the movie and suggested there was a ‘charm’ to the dated technology.
“I know, I know, be kind,” he began.
“The guys who did the CGI of the Scorpion King, at the premiere, they were like, ‘hey, how are you, good job. You know, we did the CG for the Scorpion King.’ And they kind of went, ‘yeah, we needed a little more time [Laughs]’.”
“But it was very last minute, I don’t know. But some of the charm of it is that when you watch it now, like it could get remastered I guess,” he said.
However, Fraser believes that the movie would lose its novelty appeal if the CGI was updated to a better quality.
“I kinda wouldn’t be as fun if you didn’t see this sort of janky video character of Dwayne going ‘rawwwh.’ [Laughs] And somehow, it’s just perfect, how things work out.”
In the same interview, Fraser revealed that he would not attend next year’s Golden Globe awards, despite being a strong contender for the Best Actor category with Oscars frontrunner The Whale.
