Director / Alex Kurtzman (PEOPLE LIKE US)
Stars/ Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Sofia Boutella, Russell Crowe and Jake Johnson

Universal Pictures commence their Dark Universe film series, which will revive its monster characters over past years, with this third remake of THE MUMMY. The very first cinematic production of THE MUMMY in 1932 received both positive reviews and success at the box office. Although gathering mixed reviews, the 1999 remake starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz grossed over $400 million worldwide off an $80 million budget. Back then, it was a lot of fun to watch. Despite already earning back what it cost to produce, this $125 million re-telling of THE MUMMY starring Tom Cruise is easily the worst of them all.

An unnecessarily, overly convoluted plot begins with an ancient Egyptian princess, Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) who is discovered in present day Iraq by a soldier, Nick Morton (Tom Cruise), and his partner, Chris Vail (Jake Johnson), after being buried alive thousands of years ago. Soon after the discovery, archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Willis) and Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe) join forces and must try to stop Ahmanet from carrying out her evil plans.

At best, THE MUMMY should have been (almost) two hours of entertaining escapism. At its worst, that escapism you’re seeking is the exit sign in the cinema. So bad is this shoddy remake, it may even trigger the hierarchy of Scientology to revisit Cruise’s association to them! Although the lacklustre performance from Tom Cruise is the most annoying he’s been since that infamous couch jump on Oprah, THE MUMMY has several head-scratching outcomes to blame for the mess that it is. 

If there is just one lesson to be learned from 2017’s THE MUMMY, it’s that more isn’t always merrier. Split between writing the screenplay and the story, there are a total of six writers that have worked on this fantasy/action movie. Experienced hands that have penned the script for a number of very good movies that include WAR OF THE WORLDS, EDGE OF TOMORROW and DOCTOR STRANGE. One of those writers happens to be the director of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION and the first JACK REACHER film too. Even director Alex Kurtzman, whose name you may know from the STAR TREK and STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS writing departments, has partly written THE MUMMY. Their combined efforts has executed a script filled with many absurdities, has minimum sense of adventure, just one action sequence (set on a plane) that is worth remembering and is barely about its titular character. Contributing to the carnage is Kurtzman’s continuous misjudgement of the use of several flashbacks and visions had by Cruise’s character. In particular, the attempts to inject out-of-place humour involving Jake Johnson’s character pull up every centimetre as short as Johnson’s co-star.

An unacceptable first instalment to a rather forced movie universe that seemingly exists purely in order to rival Marvel. KONG: SKULL ISLAND, all is now forgiven.

1 star

Viewer Discretion/ M (supernatural themes, violence and sustained threat)

Trailer / THE MUMMY

Moviedoc thanks Universal Pictures for the invite to the screening of this film..

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