The Mummy review: The world’s biggest star. A universe to establish. Could this be Universal’s money maker?
The Mummy review by Luke Ryan Baldock.
The Mummy review
We need movie universes now and you bloody well know it. It used to be sequels, then there were trilogies, the odd spin-off, but now it’s no longer enough. With most Marvel properties now back with Marvel, and DC safe at home with Warner Bros. other studios are struggling with universe ideas. Paramount have proposed a Transformers universe, and Sony want to ignite a baffling Robin Hood universe. So what do Universal have? Well, luckily it’s one of the more organic ideas in the form of their Dark Universe. Something they have tried to reignite in the past with The Mummy franchise and Van Helsing, the idea is to bring together all of their Universal Monsters together somehow. It’s hardly a fresh idea, with monsters crossing paths as early as the 1940s. Unfortunately, campy monsters aren’t exactly in right now, so how about transposing them into an action/horror/superhero hybrid? That’s pretty much what we have here.
The Mummy struggles from its opening moments. Within five minutes we’re taken from 12th century England, to present day England, then to ancient Egypt, before ancient Iraq, and finally in present day Iraq. It’s a shoddy start that impacts the rest of the film. Later in the narrative Nick Morton, played by Tom Cruise, in a faster talking more roguish version of Ethan Hunt/Jack Reacher, accidentally discovers an Egyptian tomb in war torn Iraq, and is soon plagued by visions of a beautiful Egyptian princess, Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella). This would all be intriguing and mysterious if not for Henry Jekyll’s (Russell Crowe) opening narration and flashbacks that lay out everything, clearing the way for Universal to set up their Dark Universe; something that was worthy of it’s own logo.
The Mummy review
After Ahmanet’s sarcophagus is transported by plane with the help of archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), the plane is soon brought down in a stunning and terrifying plane crash. Miraculously Morton survives, but is pursued by Ahmanet as she wishes to make him her king and bring physical form to the god of death. This is the most interesting aspect in an uneven film, especially given Cruise’s star power. He is the damsel in distress, and is pretty useless throughout. He is constantly beaten physically and continuously lured into traps. It’s refreshing to see Cruise go against type, and certainly something quite progressive for a Hollywood tentpole production. However, you’d be foolish to think that Cruise doesn’t turn it around into heroics by the time the credits roll.
The Mummy constantly struggles to achieve a definitive tone or even genre. It’s an action movie predominantly, which granted, make up the film’s best and most memorable moments, and yet it fails to capitalise on its roots in horror. There are a few unsettling moments, but then in comes bizarre (but admittedly funny) bits of comedy, most awkwardly in the form of Jake Johnson’s An American Werewolf in London homage of a dead friend of Morton’s returning in zombified ghost form to berate/encourage him. By the time Russell Crowe enters the film properly, The Mummy decides it’s time to be camp, and again Crowe is brilliant as both Hyde and Jekyll, relishing his cheesy exposition as the only person who seems to remember where these icons originated in cinematic terms.
The Mummy review
Whether it’s Alex Kurtzman’s failure to navigate the material, a butchered studio interfered edit, or just the patchy script, The Mummy simply doesn’t work. It wants to set up a movie universe by being everything it can and hoping it pleases all audiences. Instead, we get a frustrating and noisy mess that can be boiled down to a few great moments on their own, but when mixed together the colours just run and spoil the garment. If Universal were banking on this to generate excitement for upcoming projects they may be surprised to find the audience as invisible as The Invisible Man, and the box-office as dead as Frankenstein’s monster.
The Mummy review by Luke Ryan Baldock, June 2017.
The Mummy will be released in cinemas on Friday 9th June, 2017.
