I (DON’T) WANT MY MUMMY
The Mummy
Review by Ray Schillaci
I skipped Tom Cruise’s Mummy outing during the summer. Way too many critics dog piled on the premiere of Universal’s second attempt at launching a “Dark Universe” franchise with all its monsters. The first being Dracula Untold that should have never been told.
The future looked bright though with the idea of an action packed mummy movie starring box office star Tom Cruise, and the trailer appeared promising. But critics and audiences alike found it dreadful, having Universal put a stall on its Bride of Frankenstein with a pedigree director and cast (Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Beauty and the Beast), Angelina Jolie and Javier Bardem).
I’m not above checking out the local Redbox when something so promising is given such a bad rap. Sometimes, I end up enjoying that to which so many of my fellow critics have laid waste, and frankly it has me perplexed. Recently, I had to eat my own thoughts on the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I found it far better and more enjoyable than On Stranger Tides.
Also, I was coerced into watching La La Land for a second time, and found it not as dreadful as I originally made it out to be (but still felt it was way overhyped). There will always be the argument as to whether it was a homage to older movie musicals or a hodgepodge with less musically inclined people.
That all being said, sitting back with an open mind, I was aghast at the level of ineptitude found within Universal’s The Mummy. From the writing to the directing it is not just a misstep, it’s a giant leap backwards that makes movies like Leprechaun look good. Sure, there are plenty of action sequences, but they just look thrown together to get from point A to point B. It lacks suspense, horror, and even the humor falls flat.
Aside from all that, there are the blatant lifts from fan fright favorites. These are not homages, they are bad ideas conjured by lazy writing. Let’s throw in a dead friend that keeps visiting ala An American Werewolf in London. We’ll have the half naked mummy woman suck the life out of people like the naked space vampire woman in Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce. The list goes on from there.
Also, nothing makes sense story-wise. Tom Cruise’s character is dead/alive. The Mummy is offering him to be a God, but he’s fighting himself from evil. The Mummy never meant to kill her lover. Instead, she was actually giving him eternal life. It all sounds like throwing darts on a story idea board, and saying, “yeah, we’ll make that work too.”
Worst of all, this film is boring. The attacking zombies are boring. The Mummy’s story is boring and Tom Cruise is boring. How the hell did they make Cruise boring? Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde can’t even muster the energy to make his character the least bit interesting. It’s not Crowe’s fault. It’s like the entire cast was given a big enough paycheck to walkabout and say their lines through this mummified turkey. Seriously, I fought back sleep several times and had to rewind just to attempt to catch up with what was going on.
I never thought I would yearn for another Brendan Fraser mummy flick after Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. But, although flawed, all the Fraser mummy flicks had a good sense of fun. I was begging for that fun or finding some kind of suspense after watching this ungodly mess that only exists to try and launch a franchise of the Universal monster universe.
Perhaps The Big U should step back, wait a few years, and reconsider their strategy. Did anybody up in that “black tower’ ever consider that less could be more? Take some time with an arresting story that concentrates on characters rather than effects. What made Universal’s monsters so great in the day was that they were scaled down monster flicks. Not extravaganzas competing with the spectacle of The Ten Commandments. Hell, Universal Studios can even learn a lesson from the old Hammer Studios that actually relaunched Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy and all the rest very successfully on a tight budget.
Sadly, there is no thrill found in The Mummy. No matter how much I try, and love monster movies, I cannot recommend buying, let alone renting, it. In fact, I don’t even know if it’s worth being a time waster.
Directed by: Alex Kurtzman
Release Date: June 9, 2017
Run Time: 110 Minutes
Rated: PG-13
Country: USA
Distributor: Universal Studios
