Are You The Mummy?

I just couldn’t resist the pun and give a quick shout out to all my fellow whovians out there who read my blog. The latest remake of a classic horror movie was released last night with mixed reactions from skeptics reeling from the previous failed trilogy. The last Mummy trilogy started off strong, but slowly died a painful death in 2008 which lead to Universal taking a hiatus from continuing its monster movie ambitions. Now Universal is following the same trend with Marvel Studios and DC Comics expanding their characters into this “Universe Era.” Universal plans on remaking all their monsters and throwing them into their recently announced Dark Universe.

The Mummy, it’s one of the most iconic monster movies since its first release back in 1932 with the legendary Boris Karloff. Universal has released several sequels and reboots since; the latest started in 1999. It was a trilogy with Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and was directed by Stephen Sommers that tried to follow the original story but with a twist here and there. The first one peeked interest with a decent story and good action but delivered little horror or terror. The same goes for the reboot which is a great action film, but it’s a bust as a horror film.

The film starts off strong with introducing the audience to Ahmanet, the new mummy, played by Sofia Boutella (Star Trek Beyond, Kingsman: The Secret Service). Universal decided to take a different direction with the mummy by introducing a femme fatale type character and it works to a degree. Tom Cruise does a decent job doing his action hero routine with great CGI and intense sequences of events. It was a surprise seeing Russell Crowe in his role as another iconic character but you only see his better half for a few minutes. There’s also great Easter eggs teasing the future releases of more monster flicks, if this film is successful financially.

It’s a much darker film than the previous films and the story is creative; but that’s where the praising ends. The film begins its downward spiral with unrealistic transitions, meaningless dialogue and the absence of horror. The comic relief was barely there with Jake Johnson (Jurassic World) and the chemistry is lacking realism between Tom Cruise and Annabelle Wallis. The new look of the mummy is attractive, but one of the key signatures is the four pupils in her eyes. Those pupils are obscure most of the time and virtually irrelevant; if this was a way of separating Ahmanet from Imhotep, then it wasn’t necessary.

The biggest complaint of The Mummy is the fact that there is nothing scary about it. The reason monster movies became so popular is because they were terrifying and gave us nightmares. There’s nothing terrifying about this film; all this film is about is action and that makes for a good film but not a monster movie. I give this film a 6 out of 10 because of its creativity in trying to take a new direction with a classic, but it forgot the key element needed for The Mummy. If Universal is going to continue with their Dark Universe, then they need to take a step back and realize why Dracula, The Mummy and Frankenstein were hits to begin with.