The Mummy (1999) - 66 mistakes

Continuity: In the scene where Jonathan picks up the scarab, it breaks open and the beetle inside starts to crawl under his skin. We see Brendan Fraser tear Jonathan's shirt and cut the beetle out of him. However, in the very next scene, we see Jonathan walking into the temple, his shirt is intact and there is no blood to be seen.

Continuity: 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.]

Factual error: The city at the beginning of the film where the Pharaoh lives is named as Thebes, and you can see the Sphinx and the pyramids in the background, but these are in Giza, not Luxor, as Thebes is now called.

Continuity: In the scene in the library, when Evie is putting back the books. She leans over to put the book back, but it falls to the ground and she is balancing on the ladder.   When the camera cuts back to show the whole ladder, the book is nowhere to be found on the floor.

Factual error: I counted five canopic jars, one of which has the head of a lion. In ancient Egypt there were only four canopic jars - Hapi, the baboon-headed god representing north, Imseti, the human-headed god representing south, Duamutef, the jackal-headed god representing east and Qebehsenuef, the falcon-headed god representing west. None have lion heads.

Continuity: In the scene where Evie & her brother meet Brendan's character for the first time, the guards bring Brendan out with both arms shackled together in front. After he kisses Evie the guards pull him away and one of his hands is suddenly free - he quickly tucks it behind his back as he's dragged off.

Continuity: On the DVD version of the movie there are some deleted scenes - one would have explained two mistakes that occurred towards the end of the movie. Mistake one was that there was a hole in the ground when Jonathan and Rick are at the base of the statue of Horus. You can see the hole clearly when Rick lights the TNT - but without the missing scene there is absolutely no reason for that hole to be there and it just sort of appears.

Continuity: When O'Connell and the others are escaping Imhotep's crazed followers they crash the yellow car and abandon it. The next morning they are seen arriving at the old RAF pilot's camp in the same car which shows no sign of damage. Were all of the cars in Egypt yellow and the same model or did they sneak back to retrieve that one taking it to an all night Egyptian body and fender shop before setting off to rescue Evie?

Continuity: When Evie wakes up and sees the rat on her and freaks out, she rolls over and sees the body of Anck-Su-Namun, and screams. About half a second before the camera cuts, you can see a large crack form in the top-left corner of the table that Anck is lying on. Later on, when you see her again, the crack has disappeared. Obviously, it was unintentional damage done to the set that was later fixed.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Brendan Fraser and the Americans are talking in the bar before the water turns to blood, there is a shot of two of the Americans and Fraser. Off to the left, you can see a hand dip in and out of frame. This is the First AD's hand. The director said he was checking his watch.

Continuity: When Imhotep's priests break out of the ground, we see a shot of Ardeth, Jonathan and O'Connell starting to shoot them. It flashes back to the priests and then back to the trio and we only THEN see Jonathan reach over and grab some revolvers from beside O'Connell to start shooting.

Continuity: In the scene where Imhotep's sarcophagus is opened: Rick and Jonathan stand the sarcophagus up against the wall, and Evie steps a few paces away and stands in front of it. Then the "lid" falls on the floor, where Evie was standing. Then Evie approaches the juicy corpse of Imhotep from an angle. Next she is seen stood directly in front of him, where the lid should be, yet the lid has mysteriously disappeared.

Continuity: When the biplane dives from the sandstorm created by the mummy, it shows Evelyn looking towards the plane, with the city of the dead behind her. The plane is seen, from her viewpoint, to be flying away when it crashes. However, after the plane sinks O'Connell and his friends walk in the same direction that the plane was flying, presumably AWAY from the city of the dead but the camera shows them walking towards it.

Continuity: Whenever a scarab crawls out of its "blue gold" shelling, it leaves the shelling behind. At the end of the film when Jonathan picks one up and the scarab crawls inside of him, he begins to scream and you can see the shell still on his hand yet in the next shot, he throws his hands up yet no shell is thrown away or even seen on the ground.

Factual error: Evie traces the marks on the inside of the coffin lid to show how they were made. Problem is, there are five parallel marks that all line up with each other. If they were really made be fingernails, the thumb mark would have been different from the finger marks.

Continuity: When O'Connell is locked out by Beni his .45's are empty and the slides are locked open on both. When he throws his pistols ahead and does a dive/somersault move, then goes for one of his pistols, the slide has closed.

Continuity: In the scene where the Americans are running from the mummy in the cave, the American with the glasses falls to the ground and his glasses fall off. You see the glasses fall in front of him and after he says "My glasses" you see that another pair of glasses are being thrown from behind him near his right shoulder.

Continuity: When the two teams are racing towards the city of the dead on horses and camels you can see that Evy's knees are exposed as she passes Rick, yet in the next shot they are completely covered by her dress.

Continuity: When Henderson gets killed by Imhotep in his hotel room, the shadow of his corpse being thrown shows it to be thrown quite a distance across the room, yet when Imhotep appears, and then walks off, Henderson's corpse is right by his feet. It was thrown much further than that.

Continuity: Ardeth Bay removes the Lewis gun from Winston's plane after it crashes in the desert. If you look at the gun, it has the correct 97 round drum (it's really noticeably thick) with a leather carrying handle on top and no paint marks on it - this is correct for aircraft use. Aside from the fact we never see Ardeth Bay remove any spare magazines for it (which would also have been of the 97 round variety), which would have left the gun with little if any ammunition after shooting at the wall of sand, by the time they all arrive in the treasure room, the magazine suddenly changes to the 47 round variety (thinner than the 97 round magazine), which does not have the leather carrying handle, and has the painted marking on the top of it to enable the magazine to be more easily changed at night.

Visible crew/equipment: In the shot where our heroes are climbing down into the tomb for the first time you can see Brendan Fraser holding the handle of a wire which was removed digitally. This is even mentioned in the director's commentary on the DVD.

Audio problem: When Evie is in the library putting the books back she leans over to put a book on the opposite shelf, the ladder moves and she drops the book. Although the book was not that heavy it still would of made a noise but the sound is barely audible.

Continuity: On the boat, as Rick is checking his weaponry, he cocks his 45 and puts a magazine in. Hearing a noise, he walks over to deck cargo and pulls Benny out. He then places the 45 against Benny's chest and threatens him. The 45 is no longer cocked.

Continuity: When the blonde bad guy is walking towards the open window with his gun, the plants near the window, and even the ones against the back wall, are blowing in the wind, but the plants and trees outside are perfectly still.

Other: When Evie is in the library and all the book cases start to tumble over, if you look at one of the corner book cases you can see a piece of paper landing on it and the books are clearly painted on a flat piece of cardboard.

Continuity: As the sun is rising, Hamunaptra is revealed (a literal trick of the light). However, long before the sun is fully up (let alone directly overhead), Dr. Chamberlain is seen holding an umbrella over his head, blotting out the sun which is now shining directly *down* on him.

Factual error: The map that Jonathan and Evie found in the puzzle box, made out of papyrus, would be so brittle after 3200 years that handling it would cause it to fall apart. Lighting it on fire and beating it on a carpet would leave nothing but dust.

Continuity: In the scene where the group is waiting on Evie to decipher where the black book is, Jonathan runs out to get the car and it's pointing one way. When everyone runs out to get in the car, it's now pointing on the opposite direction. There's no way he could've turned the car around that fast.

Continuity: When Imhotep and his zombies are going after the group in the building where Evie reads to locate the other book, watch the mummy's CG mouth when he is walking in the zombie crowd, raises both hands and shouts something. You can see in that scene the CG decay shift on his face a bit.

Continuity: When Rachel Weisz gets the chains cut that are holding her down, just the chains are cut but soon afterward the restraint part that goes around the wrist is gone also.

Continuity: When the hero and heroine are kissing, you first see it from behind him looking at her face. From that viewing angle they both turn their heads to the right to kiss each other. Then we see it from behind her and in front of him, but now they are both turning they heads a little to the left.

Deliberate "mistake": When they first enter the tomb, Evie moves a mirror which deflects light onto a load of other mirrors. You can see the beam bounce from mirror to mirror as it goes along the chain. Whilst this looks cool, the speed of light is far too quick for this to actually be noticeable as shown.

Revealing: At the very start, as Anck Su Namun walks towards the camera, you can see two circular plasters underneath her body paint, preventing her from becoming too exposed.

Deliberate "mistake": Evie explains that if Imotep was resurrected he'd bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt. This is followed by (in no particular order) a plague of Locusts, Flies, Water running to blood, the sun being eclipsed and a plague of boils. At the plague of boils Johnathan says something like 'last but not least, the plague of boils'. How does he know this is the last plague? Aren't there supposed to be 5 more?

Revealing: When Imhotep transports Evie, Beni and himself back to Hamunaptra, Evie hears the plane and looks up. Before she states "O'Connell," you can see the letters and numbers on the side of the plane are backwards, like a mirror image - it says "B5538" backwards, which resembles "BE228" (no mirror).

Revealing: When Beni is in the tomb, the place is dark and is only lit by the candle he's carrying. However, when Beni turns around, his shadow on the ground doesn't change positions, indicating that it's not being cast by the candle, but by another source of light.

Visible crew/equipment: During the fire/gunfight on the boat, you can see earplugs being used by the Americans while they are firing their weapons.

Continuity: During the scenes when Rick, Evelyn, and Jonathan are walking through the passageways by torchlight, Rick's leather wrist bracer disappears and reappears.

Continuity: Just out of curiosity, where did the bandage come from on Fraser's hand at the end of the movie? [He got burned by the salt acid in the deleted scene. An explanation, but given the editing, still a valid mistake.]

Continuity: You'll notice that they put a lot of emphasis on the sun rising and "showing the way." The sun then rises IN FRONT of them. When the camera gives us a view of the riders on the camels, the shadows from their hats fall directly on their faces, when instead there should be no shadows. When the camera moves to show them all riding towards Humanaptra, their shadows fall a little to the left and behind, like it's high noon or something.

Audio problem: At the end when Rick is battling with Imhotep and Evie is reading the inscription to take away the Priests immortality, Imhotep lobs Rick over the sacrificial alter when Evie says 'Keep him busy.' and Rick replies 'No problem' but his lips don't move.

Continuity: When Imhotep's coffin is first found, O'Connell blows the sand out of the lock where the key is supposed to go. For the rest of the scene, the amount of leftover sand in the lock (particularly the arches) changes from shot to shot.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Rick is beating up Beni in the Egyptologist's office, as Rick throws him on the desk, there is a flash of light that has no visible source, and a metallic clink can be heard off to the right.

Revealing: Rick throws a stick of dynamite into a niche in the wall. As Rick and Jonathan escape through the hole, flames are seen on the right hand side. Nothing should be burning as there is only sand and stone.

Other: When our heroes open Impotep's sarcophagus, Evie translates something carved into the inside of the lid ('He has left us a message') For someone trapped inside a coffin while alive he carves quite neatly doesn't he?

Continuity: In the scene where Evie, Jonathan, Rick and the fat guy drop down into the mummy preparation room, you see the fat guy pick up his tools and start walking forward, then in the next scene, you see the exact same thing.

Continuity: In the scene when they are driving through town trying to escape the mob, the car crashes, and you can see that its lights are on. When Rick helps Evie out of the car, its lights are off. A few seconds later, you can see in the background that its lights are on again.

Continuity: When Rick finds Beni in the office, after Beni says "I am immune", Rick slams him into a pile of boxes, sending stuff flying. Nothing is visible behind Beni's head, just a sheet of paper at neck level. Then after Rick says "immune from what?" we cut to a different angle - boxes are now piled much higher behind Beni, and there's a bit of paper resting on his hat.

Continuity: When they show Anck Su Namun committing suicide at the beginning, when the Pharaoh's guards show up she whips around to face them and all of her hair goes over her left shoulder. None is left on her right shoulder. However, in the shot from the front, she has half of her hair over each shoulder.

Continuity: When the mummy is initiating his new slave, he offers him jewelry and shows him a sacred jar. Where did these come from? He wasn't holding them before in that same scene.

Other: When Evie is walking around after messing up the library Jonathon scares her by making a mummy sit up. He then climbs out and says that he has something for her and moves the mummy's hand and arm about looking for the key. If you slow the film down when he's moving the arm you can see that it's just a piece of wood with some smaller pieces taped on the end.

Continuity: When Henderson shoots the burning guy to save Jonathan, I counted at least ten shots from his pistol.  Also happens when Rick shoots, he seems to fire off more than the 12 shots you would think he'd be limited to.

Revealing: In the initial battle sequence, in one shot you can see the special effects canister from which the sand explodes up.

Revealing: When Evie is chained to the altar next to Anck-Su-Namun, the closeup of Anck-Su-Namun shows the bandages across her throat twitching slightly with the actress's pulse. The problem is, she hasn't been brought back to life yet.

Continuity: When Rick stabs Imhotep, at the end of the movie, we can see blood on the hands of the mummy. In the next shot, however, his hands are clean and there's no blood coming off the wound.

Continuity: Just after the bug has crawled up into the guy's head, you come back to where Rick and the others are. You see that Rick is wearing those wrist bracers. When they hear a scream they go running. In the next shot Rick does not have the bracers.

Factual error: When Rick is running from the horsemen at the begining, he stops in front of a pillar and waits to be shot. We see the horses round the corner and rear back in fear and one falls over. We then see Rick again and then cut back to the horses, which have all disappeared. There's no way a horse could get up and run off that fast with a rider.

Continuity: When the fat guy who gets the beetle in his brain runs into the wall, his shirt is untucked. The camera changes angle and it is tucked in.

Continuity: In the beginning, during the initial battle sequence, there is a scene where some men on horses go up a little hill, over all these dead bodies. The body right in the middle of the shot jumps two different times when a horse runs over his legs.

Continuity: When Benny is looking for the black book in the office, he gets caught by O'Connell. When they are standing under the fan, you hear the scream of the Egyptologist.  They all look towards the camera but when Benny runs out the window behind them, the Egyptologist is there.

Revealing: The first night after O'Connell goes back to Hamunaptra with Evie, the camp is attacked. In one shot, when O'Connell is shooting at the attackers, he fires and then swings the gun to his right and fires again. As he swings the gun around the flare from the gun follows the nozzle as though it were, say, a spark on a birthday cake sparkler, definitely not like the spark on a gun.

Visible crew/equipment: When O Connell is talking about not getting mummified, Imhotep's sarcophagus comes crashing through the ceiling. On a close up shot immediatly following you can see a red wire wrapped around the box and leading up into the air which means the box was guided down so it would fall straight and flat.

Continuity: When O'Connell and Evie burst in on the mummy after it has killed Burns, O'Connell aims at it with one revolver in his right hand. As the mummy advances, he suddenly has two revolvers in both hands, and before that, he has made no move to his second gun.

Continuity: Following the attack of the Magi on the adventurer's camp, the short sighted American's shaving foam changes from shot to shot.

Factual error: What is the 'Royal Air Corps'? It was the Royal Flying Corps until 1918, and has been the Royal Air Force ever since.

Continuity: When Rick is fighting Benny on the camel when they are riding towards the temple Rick and everything else is in shadow in some shots even though the sun is high up and there are no clouds.