Review of The Mummy (2017) by Juliankennedy23 — 29 Mar 2018

The Mummy: A gender-swapped Lara Croft(Tom Cruise)finds a cursed mummy (An excellent Sofia Boutella) while looting treasures in Iraq one step ahead of Isis (The terrorist army not the Egyptian Goddess). Cruise and his mandatory love interest (Annabelle Wallis) fly the Mummy back to London. The mummy escapes and Cruise finds himself recruited by a shadowy organization led by Russel Crowe to get the Mummy back before the world ends or something.

The Good: The Mummy has some pretty good scenes all conveniently located for your viewing pleasure in the first forty minutes or so of the movie. The first forty minutes has a good breezy pace, Cruise’s character seems fun and well thought out, the action scenes are great and the mummy protagonist is a sexy and dangerous foil. One can seriously start to wonder why this fun movie got so much critical flack?

The Bad: And then Russell Crowe shows up. Dr. Jekyll would argue that Mr. Crowe does a fine job but is let down by a poor script and characterization. Mr. Hyde would say Russell is a large ham who makes a poorly thought out character even worse. While I agree with Hyde I don’t think anything could have saved this character. It is simply bad because it exists in this story.

Crowe scenery chewing isn’t the only thespian stumble. We also have Annabelle Wallis as the least charismatic Cruise love interest since… well maybe ever. There is furniture in this movie I am more invested in than this character. If a bad guy ties her to a table we’re more worried that no one is using a coaster.

For a movie called The Mummy, the titular character doesn’t seem to get a lot to do after they settle in London. Some (including the studio) blame Cruise for hogging the limelight but in reality, it is the world building with Prodigium, which is supposed to be the Scooby gang that links all the Dark Universe movies together, that sucks up all the running time and all the films energy. (The Mummy was supposed to be the first of a series of Dark Universe films that are threatening us with, among other things, Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man. Fortunately, the whole enterprise seems to be on life support so expect another reboot soon.).

There are other fails. The Crowe’s Jekyll/Hyde does that thing where Jekyll speaks with an upper-class accent so we know he is good while Hyde pours on a cartoonish lower-class Cockney accent, that would make Dick Van Dyke blush, to let us know he is now evil. (If one thinks about it it really should be the opposite). This seems to be taken from the Dr. Jekyll musical of all things and Crowe does seem to threaten to sing Les Mis’ Stars at any monument.

The movie um… finds inspiration from other films as well, everything from The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (See Prodidium above) to An American Werewolf in London where the film out and out copies entire scenes.

In Conclusion: It is rare to see a movie, let alone the supposed start of an entire Universe filled with tent poles, fly off the rails so badly. Like Superman Vs Batman it seemed more concerned letting us know about upcoming projects and setting up “the Universe” than just being a good movie so we would see another. Raider’s of the Lost Ark did not try to create a franchise with its film. It just was a very good movie that made people want more.

They had a great villain, a solid action hero and a decent budget. They easily could have made a fine Mummy film. And if it was successful they could have followed it up with some mediocre sequels that take place in China and have a new actress playing the wife in the third one. Heck, you could even do a spin-off series with horrible CGI Scorpion Man hybrid that eventually goes straight to video. The blueprint was there you just had to follow it.