It’s time for another Abbott and Costello film. These two are always getting into a lot of crazy shenanigans filled with comedy and slapstick. It’s really a winning formula and this film is no different. You can feel the series weakening the longer that it goes on but it’s till solid enough where it can stand on its own and you will have a good time all the way through. The gags are on point and the films are fairly quick so the pacing is never an issue. No matter how you slice it, you’ll be having a pretty good time here.

The main characters are messing around as always when they get wrapped up in a pretty dicey situation. A Mummy is being uncovered and someone has been murdered. The are ready to help out so they can make a lot of money. Costello even gets his hands on the legendary amulet which is perfect since that can lead to big bucks but he has to find a way to get the money since everyone is after him. A mysterious lady seems awful interested in the guy as well so he’s feeling pretty good about himself but what if she actually only wants the amulet?

By this point in the series you should pretty much see all of the gags coming a mile away. That said, one that was particularly good was when Bud raises his fist to seemingly hit Lou, so Lou flinches and blocks. Bud asks why he did that so Lou explains he thought Bud was going to hit him. Bud tells him to knock it off so Lou lowers his arm…and then Bud hits him. The execution of that gag was really on point and showed why Lou always needs to keep his guard up around that guy.

Lou actually gets more wins than usual here though. One really solid moment for him was when he was tricking Bud with the money but then later on he does end up eating the medallion so he lost to Bud there. It’s a bit more of a back and forth than usual since typically Lou is getting beat up the whole time. The only area he consistently beats Bud in is with the ladies and of course often times that is part of a villain’s scheme. Lou tends to not realize this though so he’s just having a grand time until it inevitably goes sour for him. At that point he is really out of luck.

One of the weaknesses in this film is that the Mummy gets very limited screentime and isn’t very intimidating even when he does appear. Most of the film has him locked up in the tomb and when he finally gets out the movie is nearly over. His followers get more of a role if anything and none of them look super impressive. In fact the leader must have been a parody type character because he talks really tough about how he’ll finally have to step in and all that jazz only to get defeated immediately. It gets so bad that the main two actually knock him out at one point. Let me tell you…getting knocked out by those two has to be the absolute worst humiliation you could ask for. Seriously that’s really hard to come back from.

The girl’s group were a little better as they actually captured the leads and had the advantage in a fight for most of the film. Ultimately they still go down but at least they put up a fight and had a better goal. They just weren’t ready for the slapstick duo to get in the way and ruin all of their plans.

The ending of the film is pretty fun with how things worked out. It wasn’t exactly what I had been expecting but it still worked pretty well and gave all of the characters a decent amount of closure. It squeezed in some comedy without being too over the top which is really the important part here. The tone and such wasn’t ruined but then again the films are really good at keeping that tonal balance the whole time.

Ultimately there really isn’t much to this film beyond the gags. I would argue the movie is built around the gags as opposed to the other way around in this case which is why the monster plot takes a backseat. It may not win against the previous films but fortunately the gags are good enough for the film to stand on its own. I would say there is a decent amount of replay value here due to the sheer number of gags. Something is constantly happening after all and I would probably already rewatch the film and I wouldn’t remember quite a number of the jokes. That’s the benefit of using so many in such a short amount of time.

Overall, This is a movie that I would recommend. Naturally you do have to be a fun of comedic films and this slapstick style of humor in particular. If you are not then you are definitely in the wrong place. It’s consistent all the way through and I’ve got another Costello review coming up shortly so get ready for that one. This time the monster does get much more of a role. I’d say they learned from this one but this movie actually came out after the one I’m going to review next.

Overall 7/10