The Mummy

In view of the reviews this movie has received I was not expecting much. Being a Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror fan I had to watch it regardless of what people said about it of course. I have to say that I do not understand why so many seem to claim it is utter crap. Sure, it is not a great movie but it is not really bad either. It is not just a remake of the original The Mummy movies which I think is actually good. That concept is becoming a bit deja vue after all. To me the worst part of the movie was Tom Cruise. Total lack of charisma. He really do not succeed in his role. He is mostly wondering about being meh and just reacts to the various situations he is thrown into. Russell Crowe is a lot better as Doctor Jekyll. I quite like Doctor Jekyll being thrown into the mix by the way. I think his role worked quite well and was well played. Being a mummy movie there are of course a lot of supernatural stuff, curses, monsters and action. In general I think it was reasonably well done. The special effects were enjoyable and the mummy herself, Sofia Boutella, was not bad at all. On the whole the movie and the story held a lot of promise but in the end the overall performance failed to really impress. There were plenty of good things but they were just not put to good work. I think the movie would have fared a lot better with a more charismatic lead in it and perhaps a bit better script for him. Bottom line, I did enjoy the movie. As I wrote it is not really bad but it could have been quite a bit better. The good parts were sometimes really good but in between it felt like everyone went to lunch and let the janitors have a go at movie making.

Disappointingly unoriginal and average. So here we go, then, Universal begin their rebirth of the Universal Creature franchise (Dark Universe) with a crack at old bandage features, The Mummy, sadly the result is very average at best. You would think that with so many "Mummy" films of the past already on the market this new lease of life would be giving us, well, something new to gorge on, but what we actually get is a painfully familiar. From a summer blockbuster audience pleaser point of view it has the requisite effects work, it's loud, rambunctious and has Cruise and Crowe for star wattage, but Cruise is going through the motions, Crowe is laughably miscast (with a later dreadful accent issue to compound the misery), while the rest of the cast play second fiddle to the over egged effects work. It's neither dark enough as a head bothering thinker or witty enough to tickle the funny bone, in fact it at times is very dull. There's also the worrying attempts at crossing over into further creature feature ventures, a big reveal for a main character is sloppily handled, whilst the finale lands as flat as a pancake. There's some nice touches, the "Mummy" design is sharp (love those eyes), a plane crash is exhilarating and the film's stand out sequence, and the tomb/prison design is neat, but after that you start to scratch around for positives, which in itself tells a story. At least it looks and sounds great in HD, the colours and sub-woofer shakes a treat for the senses. It's all well and good people asking for it not to be judged by other Mummy films, but the creators here make that inevitable. Lifting the plot from one of the 1940's films, and even stealing a scene from the Stephen Sommers school of Mummy film making. It's unoriginal and as an opening salvo for a franchise it leaves Universal with a hell of a lot of work to do to make it work. 5/10