Review of The Mummy (2017) by Shayan S — 20 Jul 2017

Quick Review: I'm really glad I just kind of got bored and decided to randomly torrent this film instead of watching it in theaters, despite hearing how awful it was received as the start of Universal Studio's pointless introduction to their obligatory: "Monster(TM) Dark Universe(TM) Cinematic Universe(TM)" and my "favourite" hack need screenwriter Alex Kurtzman helming (for SOME really stupid reason and confirms Universal just didn't even care) the director's chair, because I'm sure if it did I would've actually (for what would've been a career first for me) walked out of the theater halfway into the film in confusion, dying of boredom and fatigue from seeing the overabundance of cliches, and most of all incredibly upset. But luckily, this time I was able to take short breaks and quickly breeze through the film which thank god I could because oh boy, The Mummy is the definitive version of how to make the most dumb downed, boring, lifeless, and domestic pandering film I've seen in recent memory. Thankfully not a film that's offensively bad in quality, but in what it represents instead.

Rather than talk about the actual film itself, because really it's so forgettable and not worth talking about that if you need to know why it's bad in one sentence then it can easily describe it as being incredibly cliche and just boring (and surprisingly borrows more better ideas from other films like 'An American Werewolf in London'), It's more interesting to quickly deeply discuss and critique how this film's SOLE purpose for being made is to rather instead of making a decent action film that can give the studio box office money and AT LEAST give the filmmaker a chance to present a vision that can satisfy critics and audiences, is to get the foreign market to financially support bad films at the box office. And that right there is an absolute shame and disgrace for a studio desperately wanting to make a 'Cinematic Universe(TM)' without thinking things through first. Oh don't misunderstand though, I know this isn't the first film to do something like this and i'm not shocked or surprised it's happened nor this practice will still continue. But what I wanted to point at is where as newer and recent films like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Mad Max: Fury Road, Spider-Man Homecoming and Wonder Woman, which keep in mind are all based on popular IP's milked almost entirely to death, are films that say what you want on them but at least managed to both be financially well, but most importantly were films done by directors that, to their credit, at least did something to spark interest back into these old nostalgic IP's. Universal Studios seems to not only care about getting some money back in it's own US market, but they care so little they got a work-for-hire slob Alex Kurtzman to come make a generic action film that can't even stand on it's own. Which is such a shame and only makes me depressed that what Kevin Feige and the people at Marvel did with their 'Cinematic Universe(TM)' was done with some form of passion and at least care is now being replaced as a corporate tool for studio's to cash in on trends done by more talented people. Here's hoping if Universal does decide to go full swing with this 'Dark Universe(TM)' then to put quality over quantity at least.