Universal is really desperate to make their monsters brand a hot property again. Attempts so far this decade have been The Wolfman and Dracula Untold, plus in the decade prior Van Helsing and of course the Mummy series. Now we’re back to that.
The Mummy 2017 is rather shamelessly chasing the Marvel trend of setting up a cinematic universe. Apparently no one’s told them that by time something is identified as a trend, it’s already too late.
Back in ancient Egypt days, Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) is first in line to throne until her brother is born. Scheming with the evil god Set wherein her family is killed in exchange for giving him on body on Earth, she cannot fulfill her end of the deal when the Pharaoh’s men capture her. Mummified and buried alive as punishment, she waits in her sarcophagus (they’re insistent on that word) for someone to stumble upon it and let her out.
That will be done in the present by Nick Morton (Tom Cruise), who’s adventuring out in Iraq with sidekick Chris Vail (Jake Johnson). Discovery of the tomb brings British archeologist Jennifer Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), who also happens to be Nick’s former flame, there to help extract it. Heading back to her country to examine it further, evil forces begin their attack.
Okay, first off: Did The Mummy as a franchise really need to be restarted like this? Over in DTV land it’s still going, with the last entry (Scorpion King 4; yes, that exists) in 2015. Is there really any valid reason at all why this whole “Dark Universe” stuff couldn’t just be building from that world?
This is also one of the strongest cases for “They made the wrong movie!” I’ve seen in a while. Who should it have been of, you ask? Well, it really should have been about The Mummy, but where I’m going with this is Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He (They?) comes in halfway through as the leader of Prodigium, a S.H.I.E.L.D. ripoff set in London that fights monsters. All that aside, Crowe is a fantastic fit for the part(s) and you can’t help but want to see his (their?) tale instead – though preferably along the lines of Robert Louis Stevenson’s story, not this nonsense.
But returning to the film we did get, it’s not a good one. As alluded to above, Boutella is not treated as a priority when she really should have been. Isn’t the point of these films to be about the monsters prior to them meeting up? The focus is put on Cruise’s dull character who we get to know very little about and the supposed romance between him and Wallis is not believable in the slightest. Apart from Crowe and Boutella’s contributions, the whole thing is just a chore to stay interested in. Courtney B. Vance is absurdly wasted in what’s pretty much a pointless cameo, the dialogue is terrible, and the ending does exactly the stupid thing that you think it’s going to.
Bride of Frankenstein is supposedly up next, but after this disaster the studio would be wise to back off for a while. Unless it’s a Dr. Jekyll movie for Crowe. They can go full speed ahead on that.
