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THE MUMMY
STARRING: Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis
DIRECTOR: Alex Kurtzman
Genre: Action/Horror
Rating: PG-15
RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes
I’m a self-professed Tom Cruise lover. Despite his strangeness, his Scientology-addled beliefs and his small stature, I can’t help but enjoy his movies.
When I heard he was going to be the star of a remake of The Mummy, I was willing to overlook my scepticism of tarnishing another of my childhood favourites and seeing anyone but the brilliant Brendan Fraser in the role.
Sadly, my faith was misplaced, and this is nothing but a mediocre attempt at cashing in on an established name as Universal Studios looks to establish its ‘Dark Universe’ in the vein of Marvel and DC Comics.
The main issue with the film is that it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it an action movie? Well yes, but it’s so tame and tired that it doesn’t excite, particularly when Cruise has done far better in the Mission: Impossible series. Is it a horror? There’s a monster and gruesome make-up, but not a single genuine fright to be had. Comedy, like the original had in buckets? Absolutely none of that, bar a couple of one-liners which muster a small chuckle.
It begins with a good idea: establishing a cast of morally-suspect characters rather than infallible heroes. Cruise plays Nick Morton, a roguish US soldier who stumbles across the mummy’s cursed grave by accident. There’s also Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), the archaeologist with an agenda sent to recover his find, and Dr Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe), the man in charge of a mysterious organisation tasked with monitoring the world’s monsters.
You get the idea, and that’s before we even get to the monster herself, Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), and her goal to bring about the end of the world. There’s a lot going on and as a consequence, we come to know most of them only superficially.
The obvious pressure to lay the foundations of a wider universe has an immediate impact on this movie. Morally suspect characters only work as heroes if they’re given depth, and that takes time and subtlety to show they have potential to self-reflect and grow. Cruise is perfectly fine in an unchallenging role, but there isn’t enough time to make Nick into even a generic loveable rogue. Indiana Jones, he certainly isn’t.
Additionally, reimagining Dr Jekyll as a monster hunter has obvious potential, but like so many of the neat ideas stashed away in The Mummy, there’s never enough time to explore. It’s a shame, as he was the most interesting character in the movie and the first insight into the wider world to follow in the planned monster sequels.
The mummy herself suffers even more, despite a strong introduction. When she first emerges from her sarcophagus she’s surprisingly disgusting and moves with a creepy, joint-snapping rhythm that is quite distinct. She’s a formidable presence when creating chaos and reawakening the dead, but her final form lacks the visual flair that was always a hallmark of Universal’s classic monsters, and her second set of pupils just look daft.
Most disappointingly, you’re never given cause to feel an ounce of sympathy for her plight. She isn’t a tragic romantic or some experimental doctor’s creation; she was a bad person in life and now is resurrected to do very bad things for no specific reason. It’s hard to see her as anything but a rather traditional and one-dimensional villain. Ultimately she feels more like a prop than a conflicted, complex character.
There are moments to enjoy, however, and almost all of them involve The Mummy embracing its gothic roots and finding a way to meld that imagery and atmosphere with its action. There’s a great fight that takes place in a ruined abbey in the English countryside. The moon is out and the crumbling church is shrouded in fog - it almost feels like you’ve wandered onto the set of one of the classic movies that inspired this one.
The Mummy isn’t completely rotten, but given its heritage and larger ambition, it feels frustratingly generic and unfulfilling. As the first chapter in the coming Dark Universe films, it contains glimpses of promise and potential, but it’s far from the most solid foundation. In fact, it should have stayed buried.
Showing at: Cineco, Seef I & II, Saar, Al Jazira, Mukta A2, Novo
Rating: 2/5
