The Mummy (2017) Review!
Just as Superhero movies are all the rage these days the glory days of the "Creature Feature" was upon the 30s-50s, dominating classic stories such as The Wolfman, Dracula, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and so on. As these films from Universal kept popping up it was only a matter of time that they started crossing over, and meeting. A similar occurrence is happening today with Cinematic Universes as all the rage to every studio. Want to make a billion bucks? Cinematic Universe it! Universal is back to their monster games in their newly refurbished monster universe titled "Dark Universe" with The Mummy as their maiden voyage, and boy will audiences talk after this.
The plot to this incarnation is very similar to previous interpretations. Someone from ancient Egypt want's power, murders someone important, gets caught, and thus mummified alive and buried where no one can find them...until you have Tom Cruise shoot a missile at it. From there, an archaeologist commands Cruise's military section to secure the tomb, and retrieve the coffin for science, but wouldn't you know it? Fickle plot devices try to intervene your fun and good storytelling to create a film that is ultimately a big mess with awesome ideas.
The Mummy is Alex Kurtzman's (known as writer of Transformers, Star Trek, and Amazing Spider-man 2) debut film, and sadly it shows. Scenes from this movie play well if they weren't connected, but truth to the matter is that The Mummy is poorly constructed in its script, and final edit. You have hollow characters that spiel classic Hollywood jargon, set up that isn't remotely interesting, and a rushed pace that clearly shows everyone involved are only interested in the action and the monsters. While that's what everyone wants to see, what makes monsters and action great IS the set up. Take the first third of this film. You're introduced to the mummy's backstory and the present day characters. I couldn't tell you anyone's name off the top of my head, except for Russell Crowe's character, and I couldn't tell you anything about what makes their characters special. They don't stand out, and quite frankly they're written worse than your stereotypical TV protagonist.
Tom Cruise plays the stereotypical hero who listens to no one. Jake Johnson plays the witty side-kick who says "you're going to get me killed" every five seconds. The dialogue is literally cut and pasted awful lines that you can find in any straight to DVD movie, and really makes you wonder just how long they spent on this script. None of these characters stood out, I didn't have a reason to care for any of them, which made it very hard to feel anything once the shit hits the fan.
For what they were given everyone did their best. Tom Cruise may have had the worst character in the film, but he was very charismatic and tried to elevate what his character never had to the best of his ability. Sofia Boutella had a strong presence on screen, even though her character could only repeat previous lines. But by far Russell Crowe's character is the best to watch. His performance felt like the only character that had thought put into it. His backstory isn't shown, only alluded to, but Crowe makes it feel like his character has been lived in. He's also the only character with reasonable motives, conflict, and every other goody that awesome characters should have. Whenever his character was on screen I kept thinking "That's smart," "He's eating everything up," "This should have been his movie."
Sadly, the whole movie couldn't have had Russell Crowe in it, instead we get a few cool scenes of the mummy posing, underwater mummies, and ultimate evil. Again, the main characters left so little an impression that when it came time for the finale, and for the biggest choice in Cruise's character, I really didn't care. The connective tissue that this movie gave us for the "Dark Universe" was the only part that made me truly engaged, and excited for the future of this project. Overall I'm very hesitant to recommend this film to people, but I will say that a few action sequences were cool, and fans of the classic monsters will find delightful easter eggs that will possibly make you gasp.
C-
