The Mummy's Perfect Intro for a Perfect Heroine: Evie's Calamitous Entrance

And why she rocks

There are few heroines that are as evocative or as wondrous as Evie Carnahan, there’s really not been enough hype heaped on this excellently played character by Rachel Weisz or the writing surrounding her.

A well educated and brilliant character in the first movie she appeared in, she was easily the hottest sight in 1999 and also the greatest scream-queen of that decade (I may be a little biased). She is also one of the deepest female leads to ever grace horror cinema, a weird mix of Mina from Dracula and Indiana Jones with the clumsiness amped up to an eleven.

Why discuss her? Because I’ve been wanting to for quite some time. Evelyn is one of those leads that helped shape the childhood of a great many people from the 90s. Sure, she was beautiful but she is also a heroine who was clumsy, a book-worm one with a sharp-tongue at that.

It also helps that she starts off terribly naive, and innocent and as the story progresses she becomes one of the wisest and most savvy members of the ‘party’ so to speak.

To be quite honest, in some ways she is a typical heroine of one of Stephen Sommers’ movies, in that she is endearing and grows as the story progresses. Fond of this trope, even in his most bloody and horrifying of horror movies, Sommers in 1999 threw all of his craft, his knowledge and his fun-loving nature into this film and its heroine.

So without further ado let’s get into the movie’s first real scene with her. As I’ve been wanting to discuss this scene for quite some time.

Evie’s first great moment in the movie has got to be one of the most memorable. After a great action adventure scene with Brendan Fraser’s Rick O’Connell, we get Evie organizing the Cairo Museum’s documents.

In this scene from the word go, we get the impression that she is extremely knowledgeable as she recites one Egyptian name after another with little paramount difficulty in placing them in thier historic context. Only for her to frown when she sees Ramses’ name, with the likely Pharaoh that she’s referring to, Ramses the Great (II), who was one of the greatest of the ancient Kings of Egypt.

It is when she stretches out to place him in his appropriate place that she kind of does what she is so infamous for throughout the museum; she trips up and knocks down every book-case in the library.

This naturally shocks and horrifies her mentor, the museum curator who reprimands her, reminding her that when Ramses’ destroyed Syria that was an accident and that she’s a catastrophe. Apparently this isn’t the first time, and he hammers the point home by begging for all the various plagues of Egypt that God once sicked on the kingdom in ancient times during the Exodus.

This has to be one of the most humorous moments in all of horror literature and cinema. It is an absolute riot, and one that helps to personify Evie as a bit of a klutz.
This is important, for it doesn’t simply give her a flaw but informs the audience visibly that while she is extremely knowledgeable, she still has much to learn.

What this serves the purpose of doing is promising to take us on the journey with her. Evie you see, isn’t like say Van Helsing, or O’Connell, or Quincy; she is clumsy and unfamiliar with adventure and so is completely and entirely out of place out in the desert and would fit in better amongst a pile of books. But you see, we need to see this and know this in order to become attached to her, as she’s the character who will be taking us on a journey.

The journey in the Mummy (and in all of Stephen Sommers’ movies) is absolutely important, as the joy in his movies comes not from seeing the end on its own, but in going on the quest alongside our heroic troupe.

This show of clumsiness also contrasts her brilliantly with her brother and Rick. Rick is first seen fighting off raiders, while Jonathan pulls a prank. These entrances are important, as they help to establish the heroes, with Evie’s first line establishing her nature and her role; ‘oops’ indeed.

What is more is that as we know she is clumsy, and a bit of a screw-up, we know to expect plenty of mistakes as the movie goes on, which is why her accidentally reviving Imhotep should surprise no one. It is perfectly in line with her, and yet even that act doesn’t manage to blacken her character or make her any less amusing.

What helps is that she immediately admits that she’ll have to clean up after her mess, to Jonathan and this also establishes another key point about her character; namely her habit of cleaning up after herself. And this will be relevant later in the movie when the time comes to repair her horrid mistake with regards to Imhotep.

More than simply the lover archetype, Evie is the 'female magician’ of sorts, in her fullness, able to enchant as well as familiar with secrets of knowledge and lore no others do. She is thus extremely unique and thus more than a match for the warrior archetype that is Rick O’Connell and the shadow magician archetype that is Imhotep in these movies.

This lends her a very important role and a very fascinating place in the continuity of these movies as she has a dual role; she is lover but also the most familiar with all things Egyptian and yet Sommers’ has her grow as the two first films progress. Many lessons can be learnt from this sort of story-teller I think, even as I say this, I really do hope more writers view his movies and learn from him and seek to emulate what he did with Evie in the Mummy (both in terms of her quirky clumsiness and her knowledge).