Review: 'The Mummy' is an Almost Enjoyable Mess

John Allegretti ’18 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
The Mummy opens up with the Universal intro, which rotates around to reveal “Dark Universe,” an amber-tinted logo over a black globe. This reboot of the Universal monster series seeks to update its classic creatures in the action-adventure genre. This first entry in the franchise follows Princess Ahmanet (Sophia Boutella), a power-hungry Egyptian ruler buried alive for her crimes. When her tomb is unearthed by grave robber and Navy Seal Nick Morton (Tom Cruise), Ahmanet awakens and makes plans to unleash the Egyptain God of Death onto the world.
For a writer as good as Kurtzman, the characters in The Mummy are atrocious. Nick Morton (can we just call him Tom Cruise?) is a scummy thief with no redeemable moments. His partner, Chris Vail (Jake Johnson of New Girl fame), exists solely to spout out eye-rolling one-liners during action scenes. Russell Crowe also makes an appearance as Dr. Henry Jekyll (yup, THAT Dr. Jekyll) in a performance that is equal parts schlocky and entertaining. The only character who has some sort of arc going is Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), but her main goal is to just have sex with Tom Cruise’s Nick Morton (it doesn’t bode well when the first word used to describe her is “beautiful”). The same problem goes for Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), whose entire arc in the film is based on her having a fling with Cruise’s Morton off-screen. The Mummy’s characters end up being lifeless amalgamations of screams, one-liners, and makeup.
The Mummy films have never ranked among the best of Universal’s horror pictures, and the 2017 reboot/remake stays true to that. An action-adventure shared cinematic universe sounds interesting, but this first entry is so tone-deaf that one wonders if audiences will even care about future films. The Mummy’s so-bad-it’s-good moments are entertaining and might have made it into a schlock classic if the rest of the film wasn’t so boring.
Overall Grade: D-
Watch the Trailer:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjHgzkQM2Sg[/embedyt]