Direction: Alex Kutzman
Cast: Tom Cruise (Nick Morton), Sofia Boutella (Princess Ahmanet / The Mummy), Annabelle Wallis (Jennifer “Jenny” Halsey), Jake Johnson (Sergeant Chris Vail), Marwan Kenzari (Malik), Russell Crowe (Dr. Henry Jekyll / Mr. Edward Hyde)
Ratings: 1.5/5
The Mummy Story
The Mummy begins with two soldiers, Nick and Chris, looking for hidden treasures in the sands of Iraq as Nick steals a secret map from Jane, a historian. They accidentally stumble upon the hidden tomb of Ahmanet, an Egyptian princess who was buried alive for murdering her father and her baby brother. Going against the instructions, they take the princess’ tomb to London, but on the way, the plane is attacked by an army of crows. Nick goes down with the burning airplane but survives the crash. Jane helps him understand the curse that is set upon him and takes him to Dr. Henry Jekyll, head of Prodigium (a secret society who fights supernatural threats of the world. Ahmanet is held as a prisoner but sets herself free and wreaks havoc. Will Nick be able to break the curse and will he be able to stop darkness and death from taking over the entire world?
The Mummy is a reboot of the Mummy movie series and this is the first movie to feature a female mummy. This is said to be the first installment in the Universal Studios’ ‘Dark Universe’.
Russell Crowe plays the role of Dr. Jekyll who is set to have a standalone movie for that particular character. Before Russell Crowe, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Eddie Redmayne were considered for the role of Dr. Jekyll. More movies to be followed by The Mummy in the ‘Dark Universe’ are The Wolfman, Van Helsing and Bride of Frankenstein.
The Mummy Review
The Universal Studio and the movie posters may tell you that this is a reboot of the Mummy franchise and we sure were excited after watching the trailers, as it promised Tom Cruise and the interesting Sofia Boutella, the first time a woman had been made the central antagonist mummy in the Mummy series, but, minutes into the movie, it was tough to decide whether it was a Mission Impossible movie or a Mummy movie. The fact that the whole movie shifts from Egypt to London only makes it less interesting.
The Mummy movie series thrived on flesh-eating scarabs, sand traps, sand storms, and a mummy army chasing and destroying everything in its way, but this new reboot does none of those. Instead of mummies, all we get are zombies, who look less terrifying and less creepy.
A few more close shots of these zombies could have managed to breathe some terror, but it eases up on horror and what begins with shooting and action like a typical Tom Cruise movie (Mission Impossible or Jack Reacher) ends up with the same mystery and adventure.
The whole idea of opening up the Dark Universe and introducing characters like Dr. Jekyll and Seth, and paving the way for future characters like Frankstein and The Wolfman is something we have always wanted to see onscreen for a long time, but definitely not this way.
The pair of Tom Cruise and Annabelle Wallis seem less than impressive. Tom Cruise as the selfish soldier who is looking for fortune and Annabelle Wallis as the damsel-in-distress who secretly works for Dr. Jekyll fail to compliment each other. The character of Sofia Boutella as the goddess who summoned death and killed her father and her baby-brother serves as a good background to the princess who wanted to get to the throne, but that story has been sidelined and all she wants is to bring Seth into the mortal world. The plot somehow doesn’t give Sofia’s character a fair chance to grow. Her character, which should have served as one of the most powerful mummies of all time, looks weak. The appearance of Russell Crowe will work well for the future installments and at the same time, the character of Jake Johnson, placed to bring elements of humor doesn’t work very well.
The movie would have worked well if only they had changed the title of the movie and not declared the movie as a reboot of The Mummy movie. The involvement of Christopher McQuarrie (writing credits for Jack Reacher and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation) may not have worked well. Tom Cruise tries his best but fails to lift the movie. This almost looks like the first Marvel movie, where a couple of characters have been introduced and hopefully the story will get better with the later installments.