Starring: Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, Jack Johnson
Director: Alex Kurtzman
Bottom Line: Universal continues to struggle to jump start their Dark Universe, a connected cinematic world featuring all their classic movie monsters, ala the formula Marvel has made famous. Dracula Untold was the first false start and now The Mummy is supposed to finally get things moving forward but… it sucked. Okay, maybe it didn’t suck, but it was very dull and unmemorable.
We are introduced to Sofia Boutella’s mummy and Russell Crowe’s Dr. Jekkyl here and there are allusions to vampires and other possible monsters, but there was very little to be excited about. You kind of hope you get to see Crowe’s Jekkyl turn into his alter-ego Mr. Hyde, but when it happens it’s kind of an “oh boy” moment. I feel like I can confidently predict there will never be a Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde movie starring Russell Crowe – the transformation was incredibly lame.
Tom Cruise does a fine job as the renegade hero and Sofia Boutella’s mummy is whatever. You’d think that a mummy movie in 2017 would be much better than the version that came 15 years before, but it’s not. The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser had a lot more of an adventurous feel to it and the lighthearted humor made it a lot more enjoyable than this one. There are some funny moments as Cruise and Jack Johnson have some pretty good chemistry, but it’s clear that the tone of this version of The Mummy is meant to be much more serious than its predecessor and it just doesn’t work that well.
The Mummy wasn’t scary and it wasn’t all that entertaining. I don’t think it was terrible and it’s not like I wanted to leave the theater, but I wouldn’t really recommend it. Not even to huge fans of monster movies. I think Universal has no choice but to move forward at this point, but they are yet to get their cinematic universe off to the start their vault of classic monsters deserve. It’s brutal to recommend a reboot after the first movie, but I don’t want to see this mummy in future movies and I have no desire to see Crowe’s Dr. Jekkyl again. The future looks grim for Universal’s Dark Universe.
Replay Value: I would never watch this again.
Sequel Potential: This is supposed to be the first in a long series of connected monster movies. However, as of this writing, only The Bride Of Frankenstein (a weird choice for the second film) has a scheduled release date and that is two years away! Johnny Depp is reportedly going to be The Invisible Man and Javier Bardem is allegedly the Frankenstein Monster, but there’s not much on the horizon. Universal doesn’t seem to have a very good plan and after two rough starts maybe this thing never really takes off.
Oscar Potential: None.
Grade: 3.5/10 (skip it/forgettable)
The Bat Cave 