box office for two weeks until Shrek took it. The film grossed $202 million in the United States and Canada box offices and $233 million internationally, grossing over $435 million worldwide, making it the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2001. Critical response The Mummy Returns received mixed reviews from critics. It currently holds a 47% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 141 reviews, with an average rating of 5.30/10. The site's consensus states: "In The Mummy Returns, the special effects are impressive, but the characters seem secondary to the computer generated imagery." Metacritic reported an average rating of 48 out of 100 based on 31 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale. Roger Ebert, who awarded the first film three stars, gave the second film only two, saying that "The mistake of The Mummy Returns is to abandon the characters, and to use the plot only as a clothesline for special effects and action sequences." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film two and a half stars (out of four), calling it "hollow, lightweight entertainment—not unpleasant, but far from the summer's definitive action/adventure flick. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a positive review, praising its "constant plot turns, cheeky sensibility and omnipresent action sequences." Todd McCarthy of Variety praised "the nonstop action of the final hour", saying that it "bursts with visual goodies." Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal gave the film a negative review, saying that it "has all of the clank but none of the swank of the previous version." Charles Taylor of Salon.com was also not impressed, calling The Mummy Returns "everything the first Mummy was fun for not being." Accolades Home media The Mummy Returns debuted on VHS and DVD on October 2, 2001. It would become the fastest-selling DVD ever in the United States with 2 million copies being sold after its first week. This record would be taken by Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace just two weeks later. The film was subsequently released on the high-definition Blu-ray format in July 2008, and on UHD Blu-ray in 2017. Sequel References External links 2001 films 2001 horror films 2000s adventure films 2000s English-language films American sequel films American sword and sorcery films Egyptian-language films Egyptian mythology in popular culture Fiction set in the