Judging by the packed house at the preview for "Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs," the public's fascination with Egypt's 3,000-year-old mummies remains as strong as ever.

Giant Screen Films' 2007 IMAX film opens Friday at Carnegie Science Center's Rangos Omnimax Theater. Part forensic mystery, part tomb raiders' adventure and part scientific and historical documentary, "Mummies" explores the long and intriguing history of Egypt's mummies.

Viewers travel back in time to the height of Egyptian civilization and culture. The film outlines the Egyptians' belief in an orderly universe, where those who lived a righteous life would be reunited with their preserved bodies in paradise after death. It also unravels some of the still-mysterious process of mummifying bodies.

"Mummies" then fast-forwards to the 1990s, to a team of medical researchers who created a modern-day mummy in order to find where the DNA is stored, to learn more about the diseases that killed them, such as malaria, and to look for cures.

While modern medicine looks to DNA code for answers, the film also looks at the pioneering 19th-century code breakers who were able to decipher the Egyptians' hieroglyphics.

One dramatic sequence outlines one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of all time -- the discovery of 40 royal mummies, including the pharaoh Rameses the Great.

"The ancient Egyptians created elaborate burial and mummification rites in the hopes that those who lead a decent life in society would go on to a better paradise, that their 'spirit' would continue to live," "Mummies" director Keith Melton wrote in the production notes. The film "is about the search for the extension of life. Today, we are trying to use DNA from those ancient mummies to help science fight disease and help extend modern man's lives. In the 1800s, ... Egyptologists used their newfound understanding of hieroglyphs to rediscover this ancient culture, bringing it `back to life.' "

Other than its sweeping desert scenes and majestic pyramid shots, this subject matter isn't all that well served by the large-screen format. Scenes filmed inside the tombs and many of the architecture shots are simply distorted when projected on the curved Omnimax screen.

But the mummies themselves, when viewed at this large scale and level of detail, are striking and graphic, as are the images of ancient art work and reliefs.

Director Melton uses actors to re-create several historical scenes, including the discovery of the pharaohs' mummies. Scenes of everyday Egyptian life and elaborate funeral rituals come alive through these segments. In a fitting casting choice, the actor Christopher Lee, star of the 1959 film "The Mummy," serves as the film's narrator.