The Mummy
(Alex Kurtzman)
I like the idea behind this movie and what it wants to accomplish. A "Dark Universe" series that has all the classic universal movie monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein, Invisible Man, etc) is ripe for the picking. So imagine my surprise that they decided to go with a more family friendly action route than a horror one. They want those Marvel Bucks. Well they ain't gettin' any.
Tom Cruise plays Tom Cruise, a Tom Cruise-ish man who likes to steal ancient artifacts and sell them on the black market. His one-liner funny man of a sidekick helps him and on one of those outings they accidentally discover a tomb. Jenny, a beautiful, smart, blonde woman who playfully is or isn't a romantic lead for Tom Cruise's Tom Cruise, is an expert on these things. She helps unearth it....but in doing so, they release a force of evil so evil that even evil is scared of evil. This incredibly evil evil is a Mummy-ish woman, Ahmanet. She made a deal with Set and must find a human a human vessel to kill, so they they can bring forth the God. She failed back in her day, was wrapped up and encased in a tomb alive with mercury to hold her evil back. Well, she's trying again. This time she's after Tom Cruise's Tom Cruise. Oh yeah, Russell Crowe is in it as Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde. Cue astonishment.
I mean, this film had a lot of opportunities to be good. It didn't even need to be a re-hash of the Brendan Fraser film from the 90's, but it kinda is. A Mummy awakens, sucks on the flesh of people to make themselves whole again and must find a human vessel to kill in order to bring someone into this world. You'd think they would go with a different story or want to try and separate themselves from that one because too many people love it. They throw in one nod to that film with a shot of the book of the dead. Oooohhhhhh.
Tom Cruise plays himself here, a charming guy who is in great shape. He is sly with the ladies, can hold his own in the company of evil and so on. I didn't see a character here, I saw Tom Cruise. He's a big movie star, but sometimes he CAN disappear into a role. This is not the case. Russell Crowe...the less said the better I think. What a wasted opportunity to play with a character who has a split personality disorder that becomes manifested into a physical rage. Instead they opt for the Hulk-lite.
CGI action sequences that aren't all that entertaining, a run of the mill generic story that fails to jump start what should be an easy "franchise" and questionable casting choices slow this film down. This is writer Alex Kurtzman's second feature as a director. He doesn't really have a sense of scale or ambition in his directing style to bring something fresh or exciting to the screen. The plane crash sequence which was shot in zero-gravity was Tom Cruise pushing himself to find new ways to entertain the audience. This film needed a more visually interesting director and one who could handle setting up future films.
This is obviously a bad start and one that could be rectified in any upcoming "sequels" or "series" films. I think they need to change the tone and direction, give the audience what they want. They want horror, not whatever this is.
Reply to Topic
