This is one tale that has seen many incarnations since Boris Karloff took up the mantle back in 1932, which was an amazing adaptation of The Mummy, and although I enjoyed Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing's version in 1959, the one starring Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weisz in 1999 was the best. It should have been left that way, but of course big studio companies never leave a franchise alone just in case it could produce a big cash-in. Which brings us to The Mummy 2017 and apparently when Universal Studios is going to usher in their "Dark Universe" which is the equivalent of Disney's Marvel The Avengers and Warner Brother's The Justice League. In this universe that they hope to create they're going to bring in the Wolfman, Dracula, Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll, the Mummy and perhaps the Phantom of the Opera and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Unfortunately The Mummy didn't put the potential series on the right track and seriously under-performed. So the film is about you guessed it, a mommy. This time though a woman plays the ancient villain who is came back to life so that she could bring Set, the Egyptian god of death, into the world. Tom Cruise as a U.S. army soldier finds the burial site and sets the chain of events in motion. However, there is a secret organization led by Dr. Jekyll who do what they can to contain such evil and work to stop the mommy. So Tom Cruise plays the....young, dashing hero (Nick Morton)? Young and dashing he is not, so I'm really confused as to why they used him; he looked really old, as if he should be sitting out of the action rather than being in the thick of it. He really needs to throw in the towel with being an action star. I actually do not really care of him as an actor either; he suffers from acting as himself predominantly, and it really showed in this film. Annabelle Wallis who plays the love interest and an archaeologist, Jenny Halsey, did a fairly good job, but still had that whole dumb blonde factor going on unfortunately. The way her character was written, it was difficult to take her seriously. Perhaps the best part of the entire film was Russell Crowe who played Dr. Jekyll. He was a sympathetic character, mysterious, and well written and acted....actually, that might have been the only part of the film that was well done. Sofia Boutella played the mommy Ahmanet, and did a fine job with the character; what didn't help her cause was that her opposite was Tom Cruise. Honestly that was perhaps the worst part of the film was the miscasting of him. Courtney B. Vance played a very small role unfortunately as an American colonel, which was a real waste of his talent, and time honestly. Overall the casting in general wasn't bad, but their decision to have Tom Cruise rather than someone else was a huge mistake.
The director, Alex Kurtzman, should stick to producing and leave the directing to individuals that are better suited for the task. David Koepp, who is a prolific screenwriter, definitely failed here, but as you look through his credits you kind of see that as a big trend in his career. Aside from the casting of Tom Cruise, the writing was the biggest flaw for the film; there was bland dialog, and a fairly bland story line and plot. Although this could have been quite an intricately crafted film with the whole Dark Universe take on the these classic characters, and Russell Crowe could have really shined, it all just fell rather flat unfortunately. Brian Tyler who is a fairly decent composer, didn't come even close to Jerry Goldsmith's amazing score or even Alan Silvestri's score for the previous mommy films. The music was simply okay....kind of like the film. It's funny how similar threads run through the various parts of a film. The cinematography by Ben Seresin was actually quite good, even though the directing really wasn't, but this gentleman was lucky to have one of the better technical elements of the film in his favor. There was something about how he captured the shadows, and low light areas that I found quite thrilling. The action in this film was terrible. There wasn't anything even remotely cool that was happening between any characters. Granted if that was the case the film's creators really should have gone the other direction and did more exploration and creepiness, rather than blustery, pathetic action. I guess they live and hopefully learn....at least for their next entry into this franchise; The Invisible Man starring Johnny Depp. Overall the film wasn't that great, and Tom Cruise was annoying, but I really did thoroughly enjoy Russell Crowe and the direction that they could be taking these characters. Hopefully though Tom Cruise will have no significant future in any of these films. Meanwhile, the world goes on; apparently ISIS is defeated, North Korea wants to have "talks" and Iran's people are protesting. So some good news perhaps?The Mummy preview
The Mummy behind the scenes
