By Brett Blake Representing Universal Pictures’ latest attempt to revive their dormant monsters for the silver screen, THE MUMMY offers game performances from several of its cast members and a few moments of cool imagery, but at the end of the day THE MUMMY just isn’t great. That pains me to say more than it probably should, but the classic Universal Monsters movies of the 1930s and 1940s are incredibly important films. They were the introduction to the world of horror for many people, myself included, and their atmospheric, perpetually fog-drenched visual styles forever left impressions, just as much as the captivating supernatural characters at the center of those stories did. It was with that in mind that I was rooting for this movie to work and do solid business, knowing that its success could pave the way for further re-imaginings of Universal’s classic horror properties; supposedly those new versions are still coming (the next, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, has a release date set for 2019), but THE MUMMY is far from a grand announcement of intention. Yes, it teases the future arrival of some additional classic monsters, and that’s kind of neat, but at the end of the day, THE MUMMY needed to work primarily as its own story, not a teaser for things (potentially) coming down the road. On that basis - on its own - its an unsatisfying and familiar outing. The film presents the story of Nick Morton (Tom Cruise), a treasure hunter/adventurer mercenary-type with questionable morals who discovers the burial chamber of Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), a murderous Egyptian princess who was mummified for her crimes. Disturbing her tomb triggers a curse which not only revives her, but also condemns Nick to an undead existence and threatens to end humanity. Supernatural shenanigans ensue, involving ghosts, ghouls, magical daggers, ancient gods, and Prodigium, a shadowy research outfit led by Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe), determined to study (or fight) paranormal or monstrous occurrences. The screenplay is where the heart of the movie’s problems reside. It’s usually never a good thing when you have six credited writers (which means there were surely even more uncredited) working on a project, and that absolutely holds true with this film. You can feel a patchwork sort of quality, as if individual scenes (which themselves may actually be decent and fun) were plucked from several separate drafts and sewn together - Frankenstein monster style - with little regard for making a cohesive whole beyond doing just the bare minimum of smoothing over the edges. It doesn’t matter how talented the writers are (and some of the credited writers on this movie are talented, and a couple of them are great), it’s often a fool’s errand to try to tie disparate voices, styles, and approaches into anything resembling a tonally and narratively coherent final product. The way the script utilizes several of the major players is also perplexing, as characters like Annabelle Wallis’ Jenny and Jake Johnson’s Vail never really feel like they contribute anything substantial to the story and are often only there so there’s somebody for Cruise to bounce off of, or to supply the frequently artless exposition required by the story. Ultimately, though, it’s the fault of director Alex Kurtzman that the movie never quite feels like it knows exactly what it wants to be or what it’s trying to do. There’s no defining vision, no overarching authorial intent. This is corporate product, and while Kurtzman’s efforts behind the camera are not totally incompetent, there’s complete anonymity to the filmmaking. The lack of personality here is truly striking, and that’s squarely on the shoulders of Kurtzman. The classic horror films from Universal, even at their most pedestrian, always had personality. This doesn’t. A few key moments have some vitality, but for the most part the proceedings - on a filmmaking level - are uninspired. There are still some good things about the movie, though. Tom Cruise is surprisingly funny here; this isn’t just a mere side step away from his MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE persona, this is a kind of goofy guy who finds himself in way over his head, and there’s a twinkle in his eye, a playfulness, that makes his scenes enjoyable, and which actually make a decent contrast with the more horror-ish elements of the story. And there are horror-ish elements of the story. Yes, there is fairly big-scale action. Yes, there’s a ton of visual effects work. However, a little credit (a tiny bit) has to be given to the filmmakers, because they were obviously keenly aware that the original MUMMY film starring Boris Karloff is far, far from an action film. As such, they’ve taken care to make sure that - at least in the first half - the supernatural threat that Ahmanet poses is handled with a bit of mystery, a bit of atmosphere (though not nearly as much as there should be), and a bit of creepiness. There’s also some fun to be had with the reanimated corpses that Ahmanet uses to do her bidding, and the moments featuring them are the ones that come closest to capturing some of the classic feel. No, this is not a frightening movie, but you can at least feel the film trying to cast off assertions that it’s just an action fest. The early scenes of Ahmanet scuttling around in mummy form are effective, as are (for that matter) just about any of the scenes where Boutella gets to brood into the camera lens or just generally do evil stuff. I’m unconvinced that she’s a great actress, but she’s got tremendous presence and an unexpected sensuality that she brings to the physical elements of the performance. Any time she's on screen, the movie basically works. And then there’s perhaps the best part of the entire film, Russell Crowe’s Dr. Jekyll. On paper, this character shouldn’t work, and shouldn’t even be in this story because he only exists to setup future movies, but Crowe makes the most out of limited screentime. The way he presents Jekyll as a good-natured man fighting back his darker impulses (i.e. Mr. Hyde) is kind of compelling, and I’d happily just watch a straight adaptation of the Jekyll and Hyde story with Crowe. Carrying Jekyll into further stories is something to look forward to. Taken together, Boutella, Cruise, and Crowe are almost enough to warrant a soft recommendation, but at the end of the day, THE MUMMY just never feels right. It’s tonally at war with itself, and its narrative is being pulled in too many different directions at once. It’s not a terrible movie, but it is a disappointing one - a misfire. The good stuff almost redeems it, but unfortunately it’s just not enough.
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