THE MUMMY (2017) ✭✭✩✩✩

Universal’s ‘Dark Universe’ needs more than a bandage to fix it.

The eagerness of studios to create ‘interconnected universes’ is a big turn-off. It’s presumptuous. Universal should’ve focused on updating The Mummy (1932) for the modern age — something the remake in 1999 didn’t do — ensuring it was a good piece of entertainment, then plant a seed that other classic monsters might join the fun. It’s not a terrible idea to have Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe) involved this first story, in a pivotal way, but to open with a shot of the Universal logo proudly displayed ‘DARK UNIVERSE’?

No, no. It doesn’t create anticipation, it only raises expectations for something that now has to work twice as hard to make future spin-offs viable. The fact Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy isn’t even good, well that’s just embarrassing.

It is a $195 million Hollywood production starring Tom Cruise, so there is naturally some entertainment value and inventiveness to keep you awake. It even delivers a half-decent action sequence inside a free-falling C-130 Hercules (where the actors perform in genuine zero-gravity conditions), although it’s incredibly brief and feels wasted inside a “horror movie”.

Cruise seems to have got it into his head his fans demand two things from him: that he run very fast in a straight line at some point, and does his own stunts for the most dangerous set-piece. As a very hands-on producer these days, Cruise often does a good job picking solid scripts and bringing them to life with folk he empowers to craft a great movie, but in The Mummy he appears to have been foolishly charmed by the prospect of being the Dark Universe’s Robert Downey Jr. figure.

The broad sweep of this story is fairly predictable, but there are fun tweaks to the usual mythology and background details. Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) summons the Egyptian god Set, in order to avenge being overlooked by her father when a male heir is born. Prevented from carrying out her ritual to bring Set into corporeal form after murdering her family, Ahmanet is condemned to be mummified alive for all eternity.

In present-day Iraq, five-thousand years later, Ahmanet’s resting place is accidentally discovered by US Army soldier Sgt. Nick Morton (Cruise) and his best friend Cpl. Vail (Jake Johnson), who venture down into the tomb with archaeologist Jennifer Halsey (Annabelle Wallis). And you don’t need to be a film scholar to guess they accidentally release Ahmanet, who goes about trying to continue her plan to bring Set into the real world. Although it’s a little unclear why her original motivation needs to continue, but I presume Set’s return is just part of the deal in exchange for her super-powers and must be honoured?

I’ve seen much worse than The Mummy, of course. We all have. It’s 2017 and five Transformers movies exist.

The Mummy goes about its business with a degree of efficiency and has some cool visual effects, like the way Ahmanet’s pupils divide into two, or the staccato movements of those she drains of life-force who became reanimated as her minions. Cruise is essentially playing Ethan Hunt again, but he gets to kiss women for the first time I can remember in years, and keeps your interest in this story through its rougher periods. But it’s all very underwhelming, especially for something intended as the keystone for a new series of movies that’ll bring back the Wolf Man, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Invisible Man, the Bride of Frankenstein, and Dracula… presumably.

It’s a weird decision to have Tom Cruise play the character linking the Dark Universe’s movies together, if that’s the plan. Who knows what’ll happen now this flopped. I’m not sure how Universal’s licenses work for their “golden age” monsters, but couldn’t Cruise have played someone recognisable from the previous movies, or their own literary sources?

It would make more sense to me if he was, say, an action hero take on Dracula’s Jonathan Harker, and Jennifer was instead his archaeologist girlfriend Mina. The alone would prime savvy audiences for the anticipation of Count Dracula entering the picture, to scupper their marital plans. It just seems a bit odd to throw in “Nick”, a bland action hero, and spend the movie setting him up for globetrotting adventures. Who cares?

Cruise had a lot of creative control over The Mummy, by all reports, but despite being often credited with ensuring female co-stars get a fair share of screen time and well-written characters (see: Cobie Smulders in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, or Rebecca Ferguson in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation), this movie undoes that reputation with Annabelle Wallis’s sketchy Jennifer.

Worse yet, Sofia Boutella herself melts into the background despite being the titular villain you should see more of. And that’s a particular shame, because Boutella’s interesting as an updated version of the mummy. Her lithe tattooed figure and exotic looks suit the character perfectly, but here she’s just set dressing in A Tom Cruise Movie™. More time’s spend on the build-up and execution of a limp fist-fight between Nick and Mr. Hyde, who’s just Russell Crowe with a bad complexion and cockney accent.

Overall, The Mummy’s one of the year’s biggest disappointments and the absolute worst beginning imaginable for the ‘Dark Universe’. Can they get back on track, of have Universal already damaged the reputation of this endeavour beyond salvage? Their next step will be very interesting, as it seems they’ve put Bill Condon’s Bride of Frankenstein remake (possibly starring Angelina Jolie) on hold. That sounds like a fun project, so I hope it gets made… just don’t club us over the head about how it’s part of a larger tapestry we’re not excited about just because it exists.

Horse before the cart filmmaking is not to be encouraged.

Cast & Crew

director: Alex Kurtzman.
writers: David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie & Dylan Kussman (story by Jon Spaihts, Alex Kurtzman & Jenny Lumet).
starring: Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Sofia Boutella, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance & Russell Crowe.