Director Jean-Pierre Ferrand returns to take over as director of the successful Mummy series. Nina Hartley also returns as Princess Akasha, an Egyptian princess whose tan lines are pretty contemporary but whose jokes are as old as the day she was buried — about 3,600 years ago. Nothing much has changed with Akasha. She still likes boys and girls, though it's the girls part (a lustrous, gilt-edged temple altar dream scene with Raven) that got her into trouble in the first place.

Awakened by the pandemonium of that flashback, Akasha reverts to her secondary instincts, and quicker than you can say Hill of the Seven Jackals, she renders horny bellboy Cal Jammer dead on erection.

Akasha can only give one man everlasting life, and she puts out the mental call to museum guy Steve Banning (Mike Horner). Banning and Akaska have had this Cheers Sam-and-Diane thing going on since the first episode, and we're wondering whether Steve is finally going to break down, give in to Akasha, and trade-up for immortality. But what kind of guy is this? He takes off in the middle of the night to search for the princess, leaving Jenna Wells behind. He gives it to hotel maid Stacey Nichols in the behind — "Immortality or not, no anal sex without a condom," he insists. Though he's just dumped two women, Banning's fickle, but at least he practices safe sacks.

Mummy 3 is an attractive production spiced with an intelligent appliqué of flashbacks and stock footage to beef up the story flow. It has its moments of cute, crackly-crisp whimsy, and the female performances are especially strong including a nice cameo sex scene provided by Marissa Malibu. And that character actor Bob Neuwave who interrupts the Malibu/Ted Wilson pairing ... he looks awfully familiar.