Get the skinny on “The Mummy” 2017!
Universal has been sitting on a goldmine for decades. The Mummy, a blatant attempt to copy the success of the Marvel Universe movies, just broke a drill bit. I saw the first trailer and was really excited for this movie, I had totally forgotten that Universal planned to relaunch what is arguably their crown jewel. The Universal Monsters.
They should have just given us Tom Cruise battling a Mummy and her army. Which is about the first half of the movie. Then we met Henry, a name that should have tipped me off right away but I was thinking about something I was going to write later. That was not a good sign. The Mummy should have kept my attention but instead, my mind drifted to other things. The writing is poor, and unfunny, the blatant attempts at humor fell flat. The comic relief was such a poor imitation of “American Werewolf in London” that he seemed to be more of an afterthought. It is not Jake Johnson’s fault, he suffered from poor timing. He was killer in “Let’s be Cops” but here… he needed a better role.
Cruise is lost in this film, I don’t know if it was bad editing or what but he is not likable or funny at all. The dialogue is really bad. Annabelle Wallis, gets some of the worst lines. “Go get her Nick” GO GET HER” Sadly she is going to be one of the main characters in the Universal Cinematic Universe. What we should have gotten was a Mummy movie and instead we got a secret society of monsters that are battling…monsters. Jenny Halsey and Dr Jekyll (Russell Crowe) lead a team not unlike the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.” A bit more sophisticated. I kept getting a Librarians vibe and was looking for Noah Wylie to show up.
Sofia Boutella was fantastic as Jaylah in Star Trek Beyond. She is delicious as the evil Ahmanet here and really should have been given more screen time. Sadly Kirtzman decided to copy the Enchantress from Suicide Squad instead of creating an interesting character. She also reminded me of the vampires in “LifeForce” by sucking the life out of people who then became her army. It felt too much like a made for TV movie (with great effects) than a cinematic film.
Please please please, Hollywood, stop with the washed out blue and gray visuals. Enough is enough.
There was one clever scene where Ahmanet calls upon the sands of Egypt. Glass, is made of sand. A fact that this movie uniquely points out. I bet Londoners realize now just how much glass surrounds them daily. I did enjoy that scene. By trying to force a concept just to copy an existing model of storytelling that works for other franchises, the Mummy unravels with too much exposition, some cutesy nods of things to come, or that have already come, and the promise of a new “Monster Squad.”
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