Photograph courtesy of Universal Pictures Still, the whole back-from-the-dead thing sets up some interesting possibilities, very few of which are even capitalized upon. Also Vail dies, but this is a world in which death is fluid at best, so Vail keeps popping back up to advise and warn his friend whenever possible (the device is so clearly borrowed from An American Werewolf in London, it’s a bit embarrassing). Or more specifically, he dies in a plane crash as the plane is transporting the mummy princess, but he somehow comes back to life and continues to share a special connection to Ahmanet, because he can help her achieve a level of godhood that was denied to her in ancient Egypt. I should mention at this point that Morton dies pretty early in the movie.
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Instead, these moments feel like more missed opportunities to make a monster movie even a little bit scary. It’s also strange seeing Cruise work in such an effects-heavy environment, fighting off skeletons and mummified remains that clearly aren’t real. And while some of it may be thrilling, it all feels like a fairly conventional action movie-particularly subpar for something Cruise is involved in, considering the lengths he goes to in the Mission: Impossible films to top himself. The overblown action sequences have Morton getting shot at, explosions going off around him, and buildings literally sliding out from under him, all the while he’s making funny faces and cracking wise.
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When the pair accidentally blow a hole in the ground during a skirmish, they open up a hidden tomb where Ahmanet’s sarcophagus is hidden, and before they even have a chance to head down into the hole, Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis, currently in the new, terrible King Arthur movie, as well as the British series “Peaky Blinders”), whose employer is something of a secret, but her purpose is to extract the sarcophagus and take it somewhere safe.Įven this early in the film, it’s clear that this is more of a Tom Cruise affair than a monster movie. But Morton and Vail have a tendency to “borrow” smaller antiquities that he can find. Greenway) by scouting out areas of conflict and attempting to identify and save any valuable antiquities before insurgents destroy them. And if you’re looking for anything remotely scary in this version of The Mummy, you have come to the wrong franchise launch pad, my friend.Ĭruise is unsuccessfully helped to be funny by his sidekick Chris Vail (Jake Johnson, Jurassic World, “New Girl”), and the two seem to work in conjunction with the U.S. From the opening sequences that establish both the legend of Egyptian Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella of Star Trek Beyond, Kingsman, and the upcoming Atomic Blonde ) entombed before her natural death, and treasure hunter Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) finding her crypt in Iraq thousands of years later, there’s a strange insistence that Morton be funny as well as adventurous. The weirdly similar tone between this film and 1999’s The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser, was the first thing to strike me as odd. As a result, it feels like a movie made by committee (there are three credited screenwriters-David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie and Dylan Kussman-who were clearly brought in one after the other to continue making adjustments, if not actual improvements). It’s the film that launches many others, and as a result, a lot is riding on its success, both financially and as a starting-off point. I only include this preamble to explain that, right out of the gate, The Mummy isn’t allowed to be its own movie. But the current plans for this new, all-star Dark Universe (it even has its own logo!) do not include any of the elements from that film, but instead are being shot out of a cannon with Tom Cruise in this unbelievably silly reworking of The Mummy, from director Alex Kurtzman, the writer of many a Star Trek and Transformers movie, as well as Cowboys & Aliens and a creator of the series “Fringe.” To put things in perspective, Kurtzman seems to be a guiding hand in the Dark Universe and is listed as a producer in upcoming productions of The Invisible Man, Van Helsing, and Bride of Frankenstein, which he also had a hand in writing, and likely many others. Wait, are you telling me I re-watched Dracula Untold for nothing ? I have a vague recollection of Universal attempting to reboot its ample stable of monster characters into a shared universe three years ago with the Luke Evans-starring effort that made Dracula a kind of good guy and something of a superhero in the process.