In the scene where Imhotep's priests first pop up, Jonathan is on Rick's left, and the guy in black is on his right. But in that split-second shot that shows them starting to fire, they are on the opposite sides. [In the director's commentary he does mention this but says it's because they had to cut some scenes out due to time, still a mistake but has a reason.] See more...
The Americans poke fun at O'Connell and Evy, saying that their find, the "juicy mummy", could be dried out and sold as firewood. This is a reference to Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, where his army burned dozens of mummies as fuel. See more...
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15 biggest Harry Potter mistake pictures
Directed by Stephen Sommers, starring Arnold Vosloo, Brendan Fraser, John Hannah, Oded Fehr, Omid Djalili, Patricia Velasquez, Rachel Weisz (add more)
Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.
Evie's shoes change styles during the final scenes of the movie; she has open-toe sandals when she is tossed out of the sand storm and when she is first seen chained to the table, but then she's wearing closed-toe heels when fighting with the female mummy and running from the collapsing city. [Evie always has the closed toe shoes, she gets sand on them which makes it appear as if she has sandals.]
There was no solar eclipse visible anywhere near the Middle East in 1923. [The eclipse was caused because Imhotep was regenerating. An event that happens in a fantasy, as a result of a fictional character's actions, cannot be considered a factual error.]
Corrected by Chanteuse66
When the Magi is set on fire, both he and Johnathan lunge for the key. If you look closely, you can see that it is actually the Magi who picks it up from the angle and condition of the hand/arm that grabs it. Yet, later on, Johnathan mysteriously has it. [We are told in the beginning that Jonathan is a thief therefore he just pick-pocketed the magi to get it back.]
When John Hannah is attacked by the beatle, Brendan Fraser saves him by cutting his shoulder and removing the creature. However, moments later, Hannah is wearing a black bandage in his hand and in his chest, and NOT where he was cut by his friend. [The bandage was not from where the bug was removed - its the wound from where the bug entered.]
When Evy is describing mummifacation to Rick, she mentions that they removed the heart. This is not true. The Egyptians believed that the heart was the thinking organ, and should remain in the body to help the soul reach the underworld. She could have been talking about the Hom-Dai, but she also mentions that the brain is removed from the nostrils, which Imhotep did NOT suffer. [She's right. The Egyptians did remove the heart. They mummified it seperately and put it back in the chest cavity of the mummy. Evie seems to omit this detail, but that's not a film mistake.]
Near the end of the movie, when the Mummy's girlfriend is put on the table next to Rachel Weisz, it is VERY obvious that she is breathing BEFORE he tries to bring her back to life. [Based on an IMDB entry, this is plain wrong. Until the 'spirit' enters her body, Ankh-Su-Namum is just a prop dummy, not an actress in costume, so there is no breathing, or a pulse, or anything similar. After the spirit enters, she's allowed to be breathing.]
When Benny jumps out the window the window breaks, but later, when the flies come, Jonathan and Rick shut that window, blocking out the flies. [When Benny jumps through, he only breaks part of the frame on the outside. However, the wooden "doors" on the window on the inside are still intact, allowing for Rick and Jonathan to shut them.]
Imhotep was mummified (i.e. he had his arms wrapped tightly to his body) and would thus be unable to scratch the inside of his sarcophagus, let alone engrave a message. [The scarabs poured into his coffin ate away enough of the wrapping to free his arms.]
Corrected by Tailkinker
The fingernail marks shown on the inside of the coffin look to be somewhat deep. Now I'm not sure what that coffin was made out of, but it appeared to be hard and heavy. So it seems that even if Imhotep's fingernails had been as hard and sharp as knives, he'd have had to be running them methodically over and over the exact same spot to make indentations in the lid. Not what you'd expect from someone clawing frantically. [The wood appears to be coated with tar or resin - perfectly reasonable for a coffin you didn't want to decay in the ground, releasing the beast inside.]
At the start of the film Imhotep has his tongue cut out, so therefore he should still have no tongue when he is resurrected. Shouldn't this mean he is unable to talk, even in Ancient Egyptian? [He takes the tongue from the first man he attacks.]
Corrected by Tailkinker
The Egyptian Book of the Dead was not a long-lost artifact that there was only one copy of. It was written on papyrus and placed in the tombs of most sacred figures. [Strictly speaking this may be true, but down that road there is no end to the mistakes. For example, reading the book doesn't actually bring back life to the dead, you don't need a key as in the movie, etcetera.]
Rick throws a stick of dynamite into a niche in the wall where it explodes. In slow motion it can be seen that there are two explosions, the initial one followed by a much larger one. [Invalid, as per the rules of the site. If slo-mo is necessary, the mistake doesn't count.]
Corrected by Phixius
Towards the end of the fight sequence on the boat, when the Americans join the battle, the Medi with the hook attacks Johnathan. One American turns and unloads his revolver into the Medi (at least eight shots), plus all the firing he was doing earlier without reloading his gun. That's way too many shots to be in a single revolver. [A revolver is not, nor has it ever been, limited to 6 shots, many revolvers throughout history have been capable of firing 8 rounds, and sometimes more.]
Corrected by pross79
When Imhotep corners Beni against a wall, Beni starts chanting random prayers hoping one would stop Imhotep. When he does and Imhotep says he can be used and the rewards will be great, he pulls out a handful of gold. Where did the gold come from? He's supposed to be a freshly awoken mummy. [He's a dead man come back to life with incredible evil powers. Who knows what he can or can't make appear?]
Corrected by Sereenie
In the scene where the boat is burning Rick tosses his bag of weapons over the side and it FLOATS. This despite the fact that the obviously heavy bag bangs down onto the table in front of Evie when the two characters talk shortly before the fire. [Air trapped in a bag will make it float. A survival technique is to tie knots in trouser legs and fill them with air to make them float and this can support a whole body, so there is no reason that the bag could float for long enough for Rick to get to it.]
The base of the statue of Anubis is inscribed with the cartouche of the Pharaoh Ptolemy V whose reign began in 205 b.c. - 1000 years after the time of Seti I when the statue was supposed to have been carved. [Study Egyptian history for the answer. Egyptian leaders were forever defacing the monuments of their ancestors, erasing the names of the real builders and adding their own instead. For this reason we don't know much of the history behind many Egyptian monuments, including the Great Pyramid itself.]
On the second day, in the scene with the sarcophagus, when Jonathan uses the key to open the tomb he turns the key to the left to unlock it. However, at the beginning of the movie, when they were putting Imhotep in his tomb, the Medji turned the key to the left to lock it. Furthermore, when Evie opens the Book of the Dead, she turns the key to the right to unlock it. [It could be a very simple locking mechanism in which a turn in either direction will cause it to lock or unlock. Position one lock, turn either way to unlock, and turn again either way to return to position one.]
When Rick lifts up the sword in the temple when Imhotep is advancing towards him, you hear a metallic sound even though it's on sand. [A sword being pulled through sand will still make a metallic ringing noise, similar to, but not as loud as, a sword being drawn from a metal scabbard.]
After the American who wears glasses has had his eyes and tongue taken by Imhotep, he still is able to articulate words pretty well, which, if his tongue was really gone, would be impossible-try talking without moving your tongue sometime, and see how unintelligible you are. [The tongue is presumably to replace his own which we almost see being removed at the beginning of the movie. We have no idea how much of the tongue was removed and therefore we don't know how much is left. It's clearly enough to mumble with.]
Corrected by tw_stuart
Ancient Egyptian is a lost language. Linguists just assigned sounds to the hieroglyphics. No one should be able to understand Imhotep's native language, only when he speaks Hebrew. While those who are under his spell wouldn't need to know Egyptian and would do the Mummy's will no matter what, Evie *can* understand Imhotep, yet she is not one of his minions. [Imhotep has some fairly impressive powers so it doesn't seem too far fetched for those around him to be able to understand him. Given that he has selected Evie as his sacrifice, it's not clear what control he may be exerting over her.]
Corrected by tw_stuart
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