The Mummy

The new reboot of The Mummy is credited to three different screenwriters, but it has the distinct feeling of a film that had one too many hands involved in the making of it.  This is filmmaking by committee, a corporate product that tries to cover all bases, yet succeeds at none of them.  The tone is completely off, with middling thrills mixed with out of place slapstick humor that seems to be trying to mimic the earlier Mummy franchise with Brendan Fraser, only without success.

The film is intended to kick off a Cinematic Universe built around the Universal Horror Monsters of old.  However, those of you with very good memories will likely remember that there was an earlier attempt to do just that.  That would be 2014's Dracula Untold, which was supposed to kick off the franchise.  But, since that movie soundly bombed with critics and audiences, The Mummy now gets to be labeled the inaugural film.  On the surface, this appears to be a smart move, as this film features big name talent like Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe, as well as a lot of expensive looking set pieces and exotic locales.  But look just below the surface, and you will see a movie that's trying too hard to please, yet at the same time holds no identity.  It borrows from numerous past films, and comes across as a careless mix of ideas that were probably contributed by a combination of writers and studio heads that only cared about making a product that can set up future films, and not a successful standalone movie.

But the core problem here is that the movie is not so much about the titular Mummy, as it is about Tom Cruise, who is woefully miscast as a charming rogue and adventurer.  Cruise's Nick Morton is supposed to be a con artist and treasure hunter, who is willing to seduce, steal and bribe his way to fortune.  And yet, the entire time, we never forget that we are simply watching Tom Cruise.  He never inhabits any sort of character.  He's just up there on the screen to flash a smile, say a one-liner, or do battle with the CG Undead.  For any Cinematic Universe to succeed, we need to be involved with the characters who inhabit it, and want to see them show up in other films.  Same goes for Russell Crowe, who turns up as Dr. Henry Jekyll.  Yes, *that* Henry Jekyll, complete with Mr. Hyde.  He has a supporting role here, but he's obviously being set up for his own movie in the future.  Again, given how little impact both the character and Crowe's performance makes, we could care less about seeing his further appearances that the studio has planned.

But before all that, we do get some backstory on the Mummy herself, Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who sold her soul to the dark god Set, and murdered her family so that she could rule Egypt with Set by her side, inhabiting a new human host body.  Her plans were stopped before they could be completed, and she was mummified and locked away.  Now, in the present, Nick Morton, along with archeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) and his comic relief sidekick (Jake Johnson) uncover her tomb, and accidentally release her.  Ahmanet more or less wants to use Nick as the new host body for Set, and rule the world.  There's the nearly two hours of the movie right there.  Not only are the characters not strong enough to build a continuing Cinematic Universe, but the plot is dead in the water.  Instead, we get a lot of scenes of Nick and Jenny running from undead monsters, and quite a bit of comedic banter that not only seems out of place with the dark tone the movie seems to be trying to create, but also kills whatever small amount of tension it manages to build.

You can see the lack of creative energy that went into The Mummy in just about every scene.  The script is banal, lifting wholesale from past movies as varied as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, to An American Werewolf in London.  Even the scope of the movie seems oddly small, especially for a movie that is supposed to be kicking off not just a new franchise, but a whole Universe of movies.  Even the special effects seem curiously dated and not as much fun as the ones seen in the 1999 comic adventure reboot, which makes you wonder if maybe Tom Cruise's asking price was maybe a bit more than the filmmakers could afford, and had to cut costs in other departments.  Nothing is big or grand here, and when you get right down to it, it's simply a cynical exercise in making money.  And just to make it all the more cynical, director Alex Kurtzman couldn't be bothered to make an effort for that.  He is phoning the whole movie in, and it shows.

The movie can't even be bothered to end on a satisfying note.  The climax is rushed, unsatisfying and makes little sense in the grand scheme of things, and the final scene ends things on a bad laugh.  Universal has had a very hard time with this whole Monster Reboot, which they've been trying to make a thing ever since 2004's disastrous Van Helsing with Hugh Jackman.  Judging by The Mummy, they still haven't figured it out, and maybe should just stop trying. 

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