Review – The Mummy

When watching The Mummy, Universal Studio’s first entry in it’s Dark Universe film series, one thing kept running through my mind:

I miss Brendan Fraser.

I never thought those words would ever cross my mind.  However, while watching Tom Cruise run all over the screen in this incoherent mess, I kept going back to Brandan Fraser’s The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001) and thinking about how much better those movies are.

The funny thing is, I’m not even a big fan of those movies.  Sure, they’re fun and mildly entertaining, but they are far from great movies.  But compared to this new Mummy, they look like masterpieces, as this 2017 version of The Mummy is all over the place in terms of tone and story and ends up being a CGI-heavy, bland movie.

While searching for prized artifacts to sell on the black market, Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) stumbles upon an ancient Egyptian burial ground where they discover the tomb of Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), a woman mummified alive hundreds of years ago for killing her entire family.  While transporting her tomb to England, Ahmanet is awoken and starts causing chaos, which includes crashing the plane carrying her tomb which Nick is also on.  Nick survives the crash because Ahmanet has possessed him in order to succeed in her reign of human kind.  Now, Nick, while possessed, must try and defeat her before she takes over humankind.

I like Tom Cruise as an actor, and for most of his career, he has picked good roles.  This is not one of those roles.  He tries to give Nick a personality, but he actually comes off smug and stupid.  You’re better than this, Mr. Cruise.  Jake Johnson is in the movie because apparently they needed someone to pretend to be comedic relief.  Maybe?  Annabelle Wallis is just a pretty face as the Egyptian researcher who gets caught up in all the chaos.  There was an attempted love story between her and Nick and it was about as fresh as a thousand year old mummy.  I guess if there is one real positive to the film it is Boutella as Ahmanet and Russell Crowe and Dr. Jekyll.  Boutella is badass and pretty creepy as Ahmanet and is growing as a star.  Crowe has a ball as Jekyll and even more fun as Hyde.  He was the only one who looked like they were having fun in this movie and I am actually excited to see his solo movie.

My biggest problem with The Mummy is its tone.  The Dark Universe is a shared universe featuring classic Hollywood monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummy, Wolfman, etc.  These were monsters the scared audiences all over the country when they were released and have since become iconic.  So why is The Mummy an action movie with slight attempts at comedy?  Director Alex Kurtzman has no idea what he’s doing with this movie.  Is it action?  Is it horror?  Is it action comedy?  Who knows.  Ideally, a dark horror film would be the proper direction, bringing these horrific creatures to an even darker place than they were in the 30’s.  But, regardless of what genre would be best, just pick one and do it well.  A better director at the helm would have been able to nail down the tone and set the pace for the rest of the franchise.  I now have no idea where this universe is going, but at this rate, it isn’t going anywhere fast.

Don’t go into The Mummy thinking of Brendan Fraser’s films because it won’t do those films any justice.  The only thing keeping The Mummy from complete disaster is the performances from Sofia Boutella and Russell Crowe.  This is a rough start for The Dark Universe, but hopefully they keep it alive and learn from their mistakes.

Did you see The Mummy?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram