Review of The Mummy (2017) by Kristofer H — 08 Jun 2017

Proper Perspective: Tonally this movie is not sure if it wants to be a horror movie or a slapstick adventure movie. Ultimately it never fully commits to being a Brendan Fraser style movie or a full on horror movie, which in lies the problem. Let's talk about The Mummy (2017)...

Official Synopsis: An ancient princess is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia, and terrors that defy human comprehension.

Plot: A soldier (I think?) unearths a tomb that allows an ancient evil, The Mummy, to be released in modern times where she wants to bring the physical embodiment of death to the real world.

Take: On one hand there is a lot to unpack here, but on the other there really isn't. The movie starts out with olden times England with the Nights of the Vail, then flashes to modern times England where Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe) finds tombs underground. Then we jump to Iraq, where The Mummy's tomb is uncovered, then flash back to olden times Egypt where her story is told.

The Nights of the Vail are never really explained or used again. The explanation of the tombs in England are haphazardly mentioned via a newscast.

As the movie progresses the link between the soldier (I think?), Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) is explained. They force in a romance between Nick and Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) because they had a one-night stand and he stole her life's work and ditched her in the morning, but all of that is forgiven when he saves her live and then comes back to life himself. Got it?

We get the comic dead guy character in Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) whose lines all felt like re-shoots to add in more humor into a "dark movie.".

Speaking of the "dark movie" and the "Dark Universe;" this movie is a 12 year old in 1996 idea of scary. There are telegraphed jump scares every other scene and the scares are just not scary, but that might be due to the pigeon holed nature of being PG-13. Therein lies the tonal issue with the movie. If you are stuck being PG-13 and cannot truly be "dark," then don't try to be dark. None of the scares were scary. This felt very much like a movie out of its time, probably would have worked 20 years ago, and that had studio mandates to give it wide appeal.

Do you have a love story? No? ADD ONE WITH THE PRETTY PEOPLE! Do you have a comedy side character? No? ADD ONE WITH THE FUNNY GUY AND MAKE HIM UNDEAD!

Recommendation: I had pretty low expectations coming in, so the fact that 10min into the movie I checked my watch and thought about leaving is a bad sign. I want to like movies. This movie was unfortunately tonally a mess, boring, not scary, and felt like a studio muddled mess.

Seriously, I had to cover my mouth from audibly laughing out loud when the "Dark Universe" logo came up at the beginning of the movie. The old couple next to me were confused...