The Mummy (2017)
The Mummy (2017)
Directed by Alex Kurtzman
Screen story by Jon Spaihts, Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet
Screenplay by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie and Dylan Kussman
Rated PG-13
I have always had mixed feelings about mixed/expanded universes. Having characters and elements from one set of stories crossover to make other, more expanded stories has never been something that has really appealed to me. This is because I believe that a lot of the properties and characters in said crossovers work better when they are left to themselves. To elaborate, I will always find something like Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy to be more re-watchable and more appealing than a lot of the entries from the Marvel Cinematic Universe due to the fact that The Dark Knight Trilogy is one complete self-contained story that works to a very good climax. I just lose interest in 15 plus movies that stretch over time and never seem to end. Now I do thoroughly enjoy some MCU entries such as the first Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man and especially Doctor Strange because those work best by themselves and even when the crossover material is brought up, it is kept to a minimum. Even though I have defended and enjoy entries in the DC Cinematic Universe, namely Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, there may very well come a time when I will get tired of the DC stuff and by extension superhero movies all together if there is nothing fresh brought to them to keep me interested.
Universal Studios is really wanting to get in on the MCU style action right now with the so-called Dark Universe in which they will have movies with the Wolf Man, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein’s monster and many others and The Mummy is the one set to kick start it. I have never been any kind of expert on any of those monsters and haven’t seen the old movies to my everlasting shame. I think the closest I got to an older Dracula film was F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu from 1922 and the closest to an old Mummy film was the 1999 film with Brendan Fraser. Oh well, I just went to this new one to have fun and escape reality for roughly two hours and I can safely say that although it is not quite the disaster like it has been made out to be, it’s still a really bad movie.
Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) is a former military officer turned treasure hunter (I think...the movie never really makes it very clear) who unearths the tomb of an ancient Egyptian princess named Ahmanet (Sophia Boutella) while doing some recon work for the US Military (again, I think) and inadvertently sets her free. Since he set her free, he is now Ahmanet’s chosen vessel for the god of death named Set (actually, he is the god of storms, desert, disorder, violence etc.) to take physical form and to do, what else, take over the world. With the help of an on-again-off-again girlfriend Jenny (Annabelle Wallis) and Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe and yes, he is playing that Jekyll) who both belong to an organization called Prodigium which specializes in supernatural threats, Nick sets out to put a stop to Ahmanet and save the world.
Remember the days when monster stories or tales of supernatural creatures served as tales of morality? I wish we had more of those. I don’t believe that a fictional organization created to hunt supernatural threats is always a bad thing as I love the Hellboy comics by Mike Mignola. But with those comics, Hellboy’s travels didn’t always involve the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense and they used so much more folklore from all around the world the basis for his adventures. This film on the other hand is not nearly as inspired and is simply here to set up an expanded universe of monsters and it failed to make simply a good movie to begin with. It is far more interested in making a big expanded monster universe with interconnecting characters and elements instead of making a film that is fun, occasionally freaky and can stand on its own two feet. In scrambling to try to make their Dark Universe, Universal has released what is essentially a film that has all the bang of a single bottle rocket and just further trivializes characters from classic literature and film. I know that Universal crossed over their monsters in the past and technically did that kind of thing before Marvel, at least cinematically, but nowadays it’s too little and too late.
The Mummy is so bland it makes me laugh whenever I think about it. The story is told in a fashion that really doesn't have a lot of faith in the audience’s ability to comprehend what is going on. The film constantly uses the flashbacks that are introduced at the beginning throughout the film to repeatedly remind the audience what was already told to them since the beginning. Oh and let’s not forget the clumsy exposition dumps peppered throughout the film where characters lay out other characters’ professions, history, personal traits, attributes and even sexual performance as well as blatantly telling the audience certain aspects of the story in detail rather than attempting to let them figure it out on their own. I haven’t gone “Argh…” this often in quite a while.
Tom Cruise is once again in the role of an action hero and that is getting pretty old. The Mission Impossible films and even the surprisingly good Edge of Tomorrow (2014) aside, I have never really been able to find myself rooting for him in a lot of these roles and I’m beginning to wonder how long he can keep it up. He usually plays the same role in a lot of these films with some minor variations here and there and doesn’t really appear interested to change things up too much. His performance in this film as it seems to fluctuate between “I’m all in” and “Meh, let’s just get this over with.”
His love interest in the film played by Annabelle Wallis is not given much to do other than stand around and look pretty, throw out interesting tidbits of information and to have irritating back and forth bickering with Tom Cruise to have “humorous” moments which almost always fall flat. I haven’t seen Wallis in any other work and I’m sure she’s a fine actress but she is pretty useless here. Russell Crowe simply plays a variation of his character from Winter’s Tale (2014) albeit with it slanting toward good when he is not being Mr. Hyde. Jake Johnson, who plays Cruise’s sidekick, dies and continues to haunt Cruise with warnings of Ahmanet’s approach and so on. But even in death he is annoying as he constantly makes jokes and does the side kick shtick that is apparently required in these movies. Sophia Boutella is really the only standout in this film and I thought she did fine with what she had to work with, though it wasn’t much. There really wasn’t too much done with her in this film to make her a credible threat other than she sucks life out of her victims and causes small bits of mayhem to occur in and around London. I have seen her before as Gazelle in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) and as Jaylah in Star Trek Beyond (2016) and know that she can play both good and unsavory characters and thus wish to see more of her in the future.
The action is unexciting and there are no scares to be found in the movie. Sure, one can make an argument that pretty much every kind of action scene has been done and of course it wouldn’t be exciting anymore but if you have a fantastic script and action that works in tandem with the narrative, it can be exciting. This film had a total of 6 writers and none of them could make this exciting. As far as the scares go…let me tell you something. The 1999 film of The Mummy was a great adventure with good action and plenty of humor to boot and it still managed to deliver some scares that made you jump at just the right moment. It was an exciting and fun movie! Scares don’t always have to be the “make you faint in your theater seat” or “make you wake up screaming in a cold sweat” variety but there should be ones that are effective enough to sell a scary, menacing atmosphere and should be there to make your monster a credible threat. Imhotep from the 1999 film would not have been menacing if all he did was crash a plane, harmed only a few people as opposed to hundreds if not thousands and spent a big part of the film captured by a paranormal organization.
It’s not like this new version of The Mummy is the worst movie ever made or anything like that but it’s just that there’s nothing in this movie to recommend and that is probably the most damning thing I can say about it. I can understand if people find this to be a guilty pleasure but to me it was a bore. That’s a pity because there is plenty of potential for old Universal monsters but not in a big expanded universe framework. I recommend audiences stay home and watch the 1999 Mummy and Lifeforce instead since this movie takes more than a few sips from both. You’ll save a lot of money and spare yourself major disappointment.
***
Be sure to check out my Wonder Woman review and catch it on the big screen. That is something you won't regret.
