Rick, Evie and her brother Jonathan (John Hannah) have just one week to save the earth

But family life has not mellowed our dashing hero, who is on the trail of an ancient bracelet with the power to awaken the Scorpion King ('The Rock', aka Dwayne Johnson).

Thousands of years earlier, the Scorpion King sold his soul to the Egyptian god Anubis in return for an invincible army of slavering hell-hounds.

When he is accidentally roused from his slumber, Rick, Evie and her brother Jonathan (John Hannah) have just one week to save the earth - not just from the Scorpion King, but also from the Mummy (Arnold Vosloo), back from the grave with his own plans for world domination.

The virtually incomprehensible plot is merely a skeleton on which to hang a succession of preposterous action sequences, including one which finds the good guys chased through the streets of London in a double-decker bus.

To make things even more complicated, it transpires that Evelyn is the reincarnation of the Pharoah's wife Nefertiti (no sniggering at the back!), who has some unfinished business with the Mummy's long-lost love Anck-Su-Namun (Patricia Velasquez).

This frenetic follow-up is an alienating and rather exhausting experience

Neil Smith

From walls of water rushing through canyons to hordes of canine soldiers streaming over sand dunes, no bytes have been spared in filling the screen with computerised mayhem.

There are also two stunningly choreographed knife duels between Velasquez and Weisz that reportedly left the latter's hands peppered with scars.

But while the first Mummy retained some of the camp humour of the 1930s Universal horror movies that inspired it, this frenetic follow-up is an alienating and rather exhausting experience.

Rest assured you get plenty of bang for your buck, and the pace rarely lets up. So desperate is Sommers to get started that he dispenses with opening titles altogether.

It's a shame, though, that while The Mummy Returns is undeniably bigger and bolder than its predecessor, it falls conspicuously short in terms of wit, characterisation and ingenuity.

The Mummy Returns is on general release from 16 May