The Mummy

The Mummy

Starring Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Russell Crowe, Sofia Boutella

Directed by Alex Kurtzman

The Story:
Back in ancient Egypt, Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) is set to take over control after her father dies, but he sires a son and therefore strips away her future rule.  Angered, she summons Set, the god of the Dead, and kills her father and brother.  Before she could complete the ritual, she is captured and mummified alive in a tomb and taken far away from Egypt.

In modern day Iraq, soldier-of-fortune Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and his friend Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) are infiltrating an enemy stronghold to steal some riches he found from a map belonging to Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis).  In the ensuing airstrike, they come upon Ahmanet's prison, and Nick foolishly frees her.  On their way back to London, their plane is attacked by birds and crashes, and Nick dies, only to come to life again.  With the help of Jenny and  Doctor Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe), Nick learns that Ahmanet cursed him to live so she can use his body to resurrect Set and take over the world.

The Synopsis:
Back in 2008, Marvel released "Iron Man" and thereby began a nine-year adventure through a shared cinematic universe that brought together their best and brightest comic book heroes to the big screen resulting in (pretty much) epic action/adventure tales.  Since then, movie studios have tried to recreate the process to very limited success (it took DC three movies before finally hitting gold with "Wonder Woman," and now James Wan is working on a "Conjuring" universe as well, not just with Ed and Lorraine Warren, but also the evil doll Annabelle, the creepy nun from the second movie and now the creepy man from the second movie as well).  However, Marvel did not begin this concept of a shared universe of movies, it actually happened long, long...long...before then.

It started back in 1923, with the Lon Chaney silent film "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."  Two years later, Chaney returned for "The Phantom of the Opera," while "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" debuted in 1931.  The Mummy, the Invisible Man, the Wolf Man, and Creature from the Black Lagoon soon followed, and then the movies started intermixing: "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man," "House of Dracula" and "House of Frankenstein" were just a few of the movies that featured more than one of their shared movie monsters.

In 2010, there was hopes of resurrecting the Universal Monster Universe with the release of Benicio Del Toro's "The Wolfman," but even though it won an Oscar for Best Makeup, it was a financial flop.  Then "Dracula Untold" came out in 2014, and was met with the same lack of enthusiasm, and it seemed like their idea was as dead as Dracula himself.  Then the announced they were continuing with their idea, revealing the Dark Universe that would begin with "The Mummy" and continue with future projects, the next ones starring Johnny Depp ("The Invisible Man") and Javier Bardem ("Frankenstein's Monster"), along with the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Phantom of the Opera.

However, with the financial and critical failure of "The Mummy," it looks like this Dark Universe will never see the light of day.  Honestly, while I agree it wasn't a great film, "The Mummy" wasn't AS bad as other people said it was.

Back in 1999, the Brendan Fraser-led "Mummy" was a guilty pleasure, a film that didn't take itself too seriously, and allowed the viewer to sit back and enjoy the ride with them.  It was a fun, carefree, escapist movie that could be watched again and again.  It seemed that director Alex Kurtzman ("People Like Us") wanted to repeat that chemistry with his Tom Cruise-led outing, but also wanted to deliver a truly terrifying horror movie in the classic guise of the old Universal theme.  As the old saying goes: "you can't have your cake and eat it too."

If it was done as a pure horror film, "The Mummy" could've worked.  The film had a classic noir-style atmosphere pretty much throughout, using shades of grey to convey the impeding doom, and not having a lot of light and color.  There were some very Gothic settings that also contributed to the old-school feel to the film, and how Princess Ahmanet raises her undead army is particularly gruesome and savage.  Regrettably, that's where the horrors end.

In terms of comedy, Kurtzman and the six (six...SIX) writers decided to rely on Tom Cruise's natural charm and charisma to lead into the comedy, but Cruise was given very little to work with in that department.  The comedy came at disjointed moments, when you're just about to be sucked into a terrifying story but then Cruise said something that should've been funny, but fell incredibly flat.  For a man who's been acting for decades, he came across as a newbie that's never acted before in his life.

Jake Johnson is a great comedic talent, but not so much here.  He spends his first few moments of the film continually yelling at Cruise in a way that should've been humorous, but was just grating and annoying.  He's the stock-character best friend who feebly fumbles his way throughout the movie, offering quips and one-liners that should have the audience crying tears of laughter, but instead they shed tears of agony.

Annabelle Wallis does alright with her job of being the semi-hapless, semi-hardcore female center who serves the exposition of most of the film, but she ends up unforgettable.  It's only Russell Crowe's take on Dr. Jekyll that was somewhat enjoyable, as even he seemed to notice how outlandish his part was and played it to the hilt.  His take on Mr. Hyde (this isn't a spoiler, you already know Crowe plays Jekyll, so of course you'll see Hyde) is gleefully demented, a mixture of Hannibal Lecter and Dr. Kevorkian who serves not only as the storyteller for the movie, but as the possibly Nick Fury of the franchise.

Finally there's Sofia Boutella.  She's not a household name yet, but I'm sure you've seen other movies she's been in, even if you wouldn't notice her if you saw her: she was the silent assassin with the shoe knife in "Kingsman: The Secret Service" and Jaylah in "Star Trek: Beyond."  She's quickly making a name for herself as the newest female butt-kicker in films, and her talents will be utilized in the upcoming Charlize Theron action flick "Atomic Blonde," and here she portrays the Mummy herself, Princess Ahmanet.  Once again, like she was in "Star Trek: Beyond," she's unrecognizable due to the immense amount of makeup used (another decent aspect of this movie), but for a movie bearing her character's name in the title, she doesn't really do a whole lot.  She was terribly underused, and deserved a better story than what she got.

Along with a disjointed storyline, the film was plagued with terrible CGI effects - camel spiders that are as "real" as those you see in the made-for-TV movie "Camel Spiders," a dust storm  in London bearing Ahmanet's face that looks as laughable as it sounds, and Hyde's terrible wannabe-Hulk style makeup.  All help detract from any sense of fright that could've been delivered.  Not to mention Tom Cruise doing what he does best...running...as somehow he and Jenny are able to run from Ahmanet's sand cloud with relative ease.
Ultimately,  "The Mummy" could've worked if it had focused entirely on its horror aspect, and also in not casting Tom Cruise (maybe Christian Bale, Jake Gyllenhaal, Casey Affleck or James McAvoy?).  There was some great effects and makeup design, but then others that resembled a SyFy Original.  It had the best and the worst to work with, and when you mix them both together you get a so-so film that's easily forgettable and laughable.

The Summary:
There's several times in the movie Tom Cruise utters, "what the hell?"  I found myself uttering those same words too as I watched a movie that could've been fine if it had focused on one idea, but instead tried to spread itself out and explore different options, resulting in the worst of both ends.

The Score: C-