The Mummy has had countless iterations of the character grace the screen for the better part of the 20th Century. With the 1932 original and the fun but lazy 1999 remake and anything in between, we pretty much got it. It can be scary or it can be action packed as it seems Hollywood has left there to be no in between for this type of film. Unfortunately neither of those extremes apply to this one. The Mummy is a pandering and very meager attempt at cashing in on a potential franchise. It's sad to watch because it feels like the studio made this. This doesn't feel organic in any way, shape or form and relies on CGI filled action sequences, Tom Cruise, and cheap scares that end up being unintentionally funny to progress the story. None of which comes off the way it should.
The story is absolute crap to put it as lightly as I can. It is plotted so on-the-nose that you can't have anything left up to your imagination except for some scenes of violence that may have been too much for a PG-13. Outside of that, everything is spoon fed to us as the audience. Instead of making you feel like you can keep up, the movie treats its audience like we are stupid and still expects us to continue watching. Honestly, I almost walked out at certain points, it got that bad. Especially during the scenes with Crowe's Jekyll, which are so heavily plot oriented that you can't get a feel for his character and when you get the chance to, it fails, crashes and burns.
The cast is surprisingly strong on paper but director Alex Kurtzman fails to utilize them in roles that best suit them. Tom Cruise is really the only cast member that fits the part which, when considering what genre we're talking about here, is a horrible thing. Courtney B Vance, who delivered an awards caliber performance in American Crime Story, is watered down to nothing more than a mere walk on role. Russell Crowe is so obviously doing the film for the paycheck, it feels like he isn't even acting and he is just reading queue cards.
As a fan of the cast and the 1932 original, I was left completely disappointed by everyone here. Director Alex Kurtzman, who went from directing a small indie to all of a sudden directing this big bombastic action summer blockbuster, feels out of his element here and misses the beats of a good action movie and completely neglects everything that could make a great horror film. The Mummy is by far one of the worst blockbusters in recent memory and stands as a major misfire for Universal's Dark Universe and Tom Cruise.
The story is absolute crap to put it as lightly as I can. It is plotted so on-the-nose that you can't have anything left up to your imagination except for some scenes of violence that may have been too much for a PG-13. Outside of that, everything is spoon fed to us as the audience. Instead of making you feel like you can keep up, the movie treats its audience like we are stupid and still expects us to continue watching. Honestly, I almost walked out at certain points, it got that bad. Especially during the scenes with Crowe's Jekyll, which are so heavily plot oriented that you can't get a feel for his character and when you get the chance to, it fails, crashes and burns.
The cast is surprisingly strong on paper but director Alex Kurtzman fails to utilize them in roles that best suit them. Tom Cruise is really the only cast member that fits the part which, when considering what genre we're talking about here, is a horrible thing. Courtney B Vance, who delivered an awards caliber performance in American Crime Story, is watered down to nothing more than a mere walk on role. Russell Crowe is so obviously doing the film for the paycheck, it feels like he isn't even acting and he is just reading queue cards.
As a fan of the cast and the 1932 original, I was left completely disappointed by everyone here. Director Alex Kurtzman, who went from directing a small indie to all of a sudden directing this big bombastic action summer blockbuster, feels out of his element here and misses the beats of a good action movie and completely neglects everything that could make a great horror film. The Mummy is by far one of the worst blockbusters in recent memory and stands as a major misfire for Universal's Dark Universe and Tom Cruise.