Video Game Review: Submerged (PS4)

Somewhere beyond the sea . . .

Submerged (2015)

Format: PS4/Xbox One/Windows PC (Reviewed on PS4)

Publisher: Uppercut Games

Developer: Uppercut Games

What is it: An exploration game set in a dystopian future where the sea level has risen and flooded the earth. Siblings Miku and Taku arrive in an archipelago of a half-sunken city and the player, as Miku, has to explore the ruins by boat and climbing skills to locate supplies needed to heal her younger brother Taku, who is gravely wounded.

Review: I like indie games. Compared to huge AAA titles they can often offer more unique gaming experiences, short and sweet and with price points to match. I happened upon Submerged last week whilst browsing the PS Store, discounted in a promotion from a reasonable £15 to a rather silly £3.29. I remembered reading about this game some time ago, so I took the plunge (no pun intended) and my, what a little gem I found.

Submerged is a very serene game. It's all about exploration - there's no combat of any kind, and your character Miku can't be killed. If you're all about action then this isn't the game for you, but if (like me) you enjoy a chilled-out gaming experience, then this is right up your street. The goal of the game is very simple - explore the relatively large map, using your boat to navigate around the ruined city and then, when you set foot onto a building, using your climbing skills to find your way up to the supplies hidden somewhere atop it. Miku could rival Lara Croft or Ezio Auditore in this regard - she can pull herself up to and along ledges, shimmy up drainpipes and balance over narrow beams with the best of them. Your routes up and through buildings aren't always clear, so the mild puzzles of the game consist of finding the best path to your goal. As well as the main goal of collecting the supplies, there are 60 secret collectibles dotted around the map to find, each one a page from Miku's journal which tell the story of how the world was flooded and how the siblings came to be where they are. These are entirely optional and provide more incentive for the player to explore, even after completing the main story. There are also notable locations on the map and a variety of sea-life such as dolphins and whales to find, to unlock more achievements.

The real charm of the game is the visuals. This is a very pretty game, the flooded environment a mixture of both eerie and beautiful as you pass familiar sights such as skyscrapers, suspension bridges, football stadiums and ferris wheels half-swallowed by the sea, covered with trees and vegetation as nature has begun to claw them back. There are nice weather effects ranging from sunshine to rain and fog, and when day turns to the night the environment becomes particularly beautiful as bright blue luminescent algae light up the sea beneath you. The textures do tend to become a bit rough when you get right up close to the buildings, but this doesn't detract from the experience.

The game is a short one - I completed it and found about half of the collectibles in around four hours or so - but it's one I'll go back to, to explore some more and find the rest. If you're looking for a peaceful gaming experience to chill out to, you can't go wrong with this.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Film Review: Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

Enough is enough . . .

Transformers: The Last Knight (12A)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Laura Haddock, Anthony Hopkins

Director: Michael Bay

The Plot: I hope you're ready for this. So, in yet another example of the Transformers having already been on Earth, a group of them arrived during the dark ages and allied themselves with Arthur and the Knights of the Round. They brought with them a relic that has the power to reanimate Cybertron, which takes the form of a staff that's presented to Merlin and coded to his DNA so that only his descendants can wield it. The Knights withdraw, leaving the prediction that one day someone will use the staff to stop a great evil. They leave behind one Knight with a talisman, to search for the person who will become the "Last Knight" and lead them to victory, whilst a group of humans calling themselves the Wicwiccans devote their lives to protecting the staff and keeping the knowledge of Transformers and Merlin's descendants hidden.

And breathe. We're only halfway through.

Fast-forward to the present, five years after the events of Age of Extinction. All Transformers are now illegal and hunted by a worldwide organisation called the TRF, so Cade Yeager (Wahlberg) now lives off the grid and shelters the Autobots. He encounters the old Knight and the talisman latches onto him, which not only marks him as the hero of legend but also somehow makes everyone - the TRF and Megatron included - suddenly aware of the entire backstory and determined to retrieve the staff. Yeager is summoned to England by Sir Edmund Burton (Hopkins), a member of the Wicwiccans, who also summons Vivian Wembley (Haddock), a historian who also happens to be the last surviving descendant of Merlin. Burton sends them on a quest to retrieve the staff from the hidden refuge of the old Knights, but time is running out as not only are the TRF and Decepticons pursuing them, but Cyberton itself is headed to Earth, bringing with it the "Creator" called Quintessa (who was responsible for all the shenanigans in the last film), the powerful being responsible for the creation of the Transformers, who wants to use the staff to restore Cyberton and destroy Earth in the process, and has also brainwashed Optimus Prime (who, you know, went there to try and kill her at the end of the last film) into helping her. Oh, and did I mention that Earth itself might also somehow be Unicron?

And that's not even all of it.

Review: Oh dear. I really didn't think that there could be a worse Transformers film than its predecessor Age of Extinction, but oh how wrong I was. This is a colossal clusterfuck of a film, a bloated, two-and-a-half-hour session of Michael Bay wanking himself to completion over and over whilst steamrolling over anything resembling plot cohesion, continuity or artistic integrity.

It's difficult to know where to start, and in all honesty it's probably unfair to place all of the blame on Bay for this. About 90% of the film's problems can be traced back to the script, but in the end that's the script that he was happy to shoot. And holy fuck it's awful. I can't remember any other film that has a plot so complicated and yet handled so badly as this one. Plot threads are dangled in front of us and then thrown away. Stuff happens that contradicts not only events that happened in previous films, but also things that have happened five or ten minutes prior. There are plot gaps from Age of Extinction that aren't explained. And despite the fact that a great deal of time is spent by characters spouting exposition at us, by the end of the film I still didn't have a fucking clue what was going on. Josh Duhamel, who you may remember from the previous films in the series as the likeable soldier who worked with and supported the Autobots, is reduced in this film to telling us what's going on with such gems as "Look, it's a big alien ship." Yes, that's the level of dialogue in this film. At one point in the third act, a small Transformer resembling Dusty Bin and owned by Izabella (a surrogate daughter of sorts to Yeager, from another plotline not handled well or resolved in any way) is released onto the battlefield. It trundles up to a Deception gun emplacement, aims it's weapon and speaks it's only line of dialogue in the entire film: "Fuck you."

There is just too much going on here for any reasonable audience to deal with or make sense of, because of the way it's handled. How does Megatron know about the staff and why does he want to help Quintessa destroy Earth? Who knows. Why is Duhamel's character working undercover in the TRF? Who knows. Why is Grimlock the only Dinobot left, and why does Yeager instead suddenly have three "baby" dinobots as well? Who knows. And why are some Autobots playing fucking volleyball in Cuba and never come to help? Who knows. We're never told!

I'll stop for a moment to address a concern I'm sure you all have - do things blow up in this film? Yes, a lot. There are more explosions and slow-motion robot destruction than you can shake a proverbial stick at. To his credit it's one thing Bay does have an eye for, as for all the criticism I can level at this film it's the one part that you expect from a Transformers film that he gets right. The action is second-to-none, and there are even moments of cinematography (not in the battles) that verge on the spectacular, but the sheer volume of explosions and robot smack-down overwhelm an already hard-to-follow story.

Now, the acting. Oh, the acting. You might say that it's the saving grace of the film, as it's really the only reason I could recommend you to go and watch it. I haven't laughed or shook my head as much as this when watching a film for some time. Again, the script has a large part to play in this, as actors can only do so much with what they're given, but the dialogue and character development (if there's any at all) is terrible to the point of hilarity. Wahlberg is simply Wahlberg in this film, making no attempt at either a Texan accent or a dramatic performance. At one point I seriously expected him to tell another character to say hello to their mother for him. Oh, and do you remember that I told you that Yeager is given a talisman that marks him out as "the Last Knight"? Well, by the end of the film this has absolutely zero relevance whatsoever. At one point it allows him to summon a sword and fight one of the transformer Knights, but in the climactic final battle where it might actually be useful it's nowhere to be seen, which is mind-boggling given the sub-title of the film. Laura Haddock (who you might remember being wonderful in her very brief scenes as Star-Lord's dying mother in the Guardians of the Galaxy films) is given a walking stereotype to play here. Her character has zero romantic chemistry with Yeager and most of their "banter" is funny for completely the wrong reasons. She is, unfortunately, this film's character who just seems to be there to look good in tight clothes (which the series has a habit of, just look back at Megan Fox and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), which is a real shame. Other characters are similarly under-used and stereotypical. And the less said about Cogsworth, the transformer butler of Hopkins' character, the better. Cogsworth is the Jar Jar Binks of Transformers: The Last Knight.

I need to spend a moment here talking about Anthony Hopkins, who is a fucking lunatic in this film. I don't know what he was smoking, but it feels like he approached Bay and said "All right Michael, I'm going to play this character as batshit crazy as I possibly can, how does that sound?" to which Bay responded "Okay Anthony, sounds great." His character, an eccentric English lord, fluctuates between the cool. thespian tones you'd expect to moments of outright lunacy, where Hopkins doesn't just chew the scenery but takes huge, gnashing bites out of it. "That is a bitchin' car" he remarks as Hot Rod comes roaring up the driveway of his castle in the form of a Lamborghini (an Italian car, despite Hot Rod being so French in this film that it wouldn't have been surprising if he put on a beret and started twirling a baguette around). At one point I was literally in tears laughing as he chases children out of a submarine (a disguised Transformer, of course) yelling "Run fat boy!" His dialogue and performance in this film really is something to behold.

Perhaps the saddest part of this film and all it's flaws is Optimus Prime. Our hero character, and if you would believe all the marketing, now our main villain and cause of the greatest conflict in the story as the Autobots now have to fight their leader. He's hardly in it. I'd say Prime gets about ten minutes of screen time, tops. "I am Nemesis Prime" he snarls angrily after being brainwashed, a title never spoken again by him or any other character in the film. When he does finally make his entrance and fights Bumblebee, we're given our "Martha" moment of 2017 when, on hearing Bumblebee's actual voice, Prime instantly snaps out of his conditioning and rejoins the Autobots. That's it. That's how that entire plot thread is handled and resolved. It could have been the driving force of the film, but as it is, it's little more than a footnote.

There's so much more that I could say, but I think I've gone on long enough.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
A disastrous and embarrassing low for the Transformers franchise, this is an absolutely atrocious film where the only saving grace is the unintended hilarity of the acting performances. It's worth watching just to witness Anthony Hopkins go completely insane, but that's it. This won't be the end of the series, as it continues to make too much money for that (a standalone Bumblebee film and the sixth main film in the series are both planned), but this is officially the script that killed it.

Video Game Review: WipEout Omega Collection (PS4)

I feel the need . . . 

WipEout: Omega Collection

Format: PS4

Publisher: Sony

Developer: Clever Beans/EPOS Studios/XDev

What is it: A collection of three remastered games from the WipEout series - racing games where players pilot futuristic hoverships around twisting, turning tracks at breakneck speeds. This contains 2048, HD and Fury (which was itself an expansion for HD).

Review: WipEout holds a special place in the hearts of a certain generation of gamers. First arriving in 1995 on the original PlayStation, it gained massive acclaim for the quality of its graphics and futuristic setting, it's electronica/dance soundtrack (featuring The Prodigy, Orbital, The Chemical Brothers etc) and it's sheer unrelenting speed. I was never a PlayStation guy during my teen years. I'd been Team Nintendo since childhood (and still am at heart - I'm desperately trying not to succumb to temptation and buy a Switch, as that thing looks awesome) and was quite happy at that point with my N64 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time, so I missed out on the WipEout experience. I switched to PlayStation when I went to Uni and now, all these years later, I finally get to try it out.

So, Omega Collection is not a brand new WipEout game, let's just make that clear. It contains three high-definition remasters of 2048, HD and Fury - 2048 was originally a PS Vita game, and HD (and it's expansion Fury) were originally for the PS3 back in 2008. But what a collection of remasters this is. The developers involved have done a fantastic job in bringing these three titles up to the standard of today's PS4, and the results make the WipEout series relevant again.

The graphics look incredible (2048 being the best in my opinion), having been given a full coat of paint with improved textures, lighting etc, and the whole thing runs at an incredibly smooth 60fps, the holy grail of today's gaming for console peasants such as myself. I haven't noticed a single instance of dropped frames, tearing or slowdown whilst playing, and that's even more impressive given the speed.

Holy fuck, the speed!

Each title has three different speed levels, and as you play through the main grand prix's you are gradually eased up from the slowest level - which stills feels fast when you initially play it - to the highest, which is an absolutely mind-blowing experience. Newcomers like myself will be amazed, old hands who remember the series fondly will be satisfied, of that I have no doubt. It's an incredibly intense experience that is only heightened by the soundtrack, which is a modern collection of the series' trademark dance/electronica genre. I recommend you turn it up loud!

In terms of content, there's loads here - each of the three games has dozens of ships to unlock and achievements to aim for, and the races themselves are varied from a standard grand prix, time trials, combat modes where the aim is to destroy as many opponents as possible using the weapons that litter the tracks, to probably the most demanding mode called "Zone" where the track is changed to high-contrast colours and the speed continually increases while your ship's handing decreases. The only real criticism I have of the game is the difficulty - I would never claim to be the world's best racing player, but once you hit the fastest speed modes and hardest races, you need to be a veritable driving God to have a chance of winning.

The price for all of this? £25. That's all! Sony could never get away with charging full-price for a collection of remasters, but £25 is a bargain in my opinion considering the amount of content and the care and attention that's gone into this. The game has only been out a few weeks but has already been very successful, so hopefully this could lead to a brand-new game built from the ground up for modern consoles. We can but dream. In the meantime, we have Omega Collection. Highly recommended!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars 

Film Review: Gifted (2017)

Little Miss Sunshine . . .

Gifted (12A)

Starring: Chris Evans, Mckenna Grace, Octavia Spencer, Lindsay Duncan

Director: Marc Webb

The Plot: After the suicide of his sister, a maths genius, Frank Adler (Evans) takes custody of his infant niece Mary (Grace), with the promise that he'll give her a normal life. Now aged seven and having been home schooled by Frank, with the help of their kindly neighbour Roberta (Spencer), Mary is sent to a regular school to be among other children. Here she's revealed to be a maths prodigy just like her mother, and this attracts the attention of Frank's estranged mother Evelyn, who begins a custody battle . . .

Review: Any film like this one, a drama revolving around family issues and especially one involving a young child, faces some difficult problems: take schmaltz, for example. You do need it for something like this. As an audience we need to care, and just the right amount of it can work wonders. Too much of it can ruin a film, making it a sugary mess that's hard to stomach. Too little of it (or none at all) can make us begin to wonder why are we even bothering? Why should we care about a bunch of people who clearly don't care about each other? Then there's the problem of originality, which is something that affects film-making in general these days. We've seen most things before, and when it comes to family dramas like this, we've definitely seen most things before, making it easy to predict the outcome.

 

If I were to say to you that Gifted has none of these problems and is perfect, I'd be lying. It does have these problems; the schmaltz not so much, as while there are the occasional moments that push into sugar territory (Hospital scene where they watch families celebrating new babies being born, I'm looking at you), on the whole it gets the balance about right. But in terms of originality it does suffer a fair bit. The film starts out pretty well, introducing us to Frank and Mary's somewhat quirky life in Florida where he repairs boats and she questions why she suddenly has to go to school, but it quickly becomes very easy to predict where the plot is taking us - revelation of Mary's gift, friendly teacher that's an obvious love interest for Frank, etc etc - and this only amplifies with the arrival of Mary's grandmother and the custody battle that ensues.

But, I didn't care.

This film has two performances that completely elevate it above its predictability, in my humble opinion. One is from a global star who has become known worldwide for his appearances in blockbuster Marvel films. The other is from a girl who, at time of writing, is only ten years old.

Let's start with Evans. I bet he was absolutely jumping at the chance for a film like this, that would allow him to really stretch his acting muscles. For the last six years he's been almost exclusively Captain America to the majority of audiences (I saw and liked his performance in 2012's The Iceman, but can many people honestly say they saw Snowpiercer, Before We Go or Playing It Cool? I certainly didn't, and I watch a shitload of films.) While Cap isn't all action - I for one rate his dramatic performances in both The Winter Soldier and Civil War - Evans isn't given nearly as much to work with as he does here. Frank is not a perfect character by far - he makes mistakes, he gets angry with Mary and upsets her - but he's never a prick, and Evans's portrayal is completely believable as that of an inherently good man who wasn't expecting fatherhood, but now that he has it, doesn't want to let it go. When he realises that the best opportunities in life for Mary may not be with him, he's torn. It's very easy, even for someone like me who doesn't have kids, to sympathise with Frank and to root for him, and while the script is in an important part of that, Evans's performance is really what nails it.

Mckenna Grace is something of a revelation. Every so often a child actor comes along that shows acting chops and wisdom beyond their years, and based on this performance Grace is the latest to be added to this list. Think of how Dakota Fanning wowed audiences when she was a child, and you're on the right track. Mary's character is a very difficult one to get right - on the one hand, there's the aspect of her personality dominated by her superior intelligence, the one that gets fully absorbed by mathematics and makes the other kids her age seem "boring", and yet on the other hand there's the other aspect of her that's still a seven year-old kid, who plays with Lego and watches Ice Age over and over on DVD and gets angry and misbehaves sometimes. Grace plays both sides of Mary perfectly and, much like Evans, makes the actions and reactions of the character completely believable.

The two form the core of the film, and it wouldn't work without them. Their emotional scenes together are particularly effective, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I rolled some manly tears during the third act when Frank and Mary are reunited (if you watch it and remain dry-eyed, you can consider yourself a heartless fuck.) I'm kind of a sucker for a father-daughter relationship these days, which I put down to the ongoing effect that my favourite video game of all time, The Last of Us, has had on me. Oh God, the feels. There's a somewhat similar vibe here in Gifted - Mary doesn't call Frank "Dad", he doesn't refer to her as his daughter, and interestingly enough there's not one point in the film where either of them says "I love you" to the other. They don't need to say it, and you completely understand why.

In comparison the rest of the cast don't have as much to work with. The wonderfully talented Octavia Spencer could do this role in her sleep, and Jenny Slate (as Bonnie, Mary's teacher/Frank's love interest) gets sidelined for most of the third act. Lindsay Duncan, as Frank's ice-queen mother Evelyn, gets more material to work with but, while her performance is fine, the character is again one where originality is not a strong suit, and it's very easy to predict which skeletons are going to fall out of her closet and what decisions are going to be made.

Director Marc Webb does a good job here, in my opinion. Prior to shooting both Amazing Spider-Man films for Sony he directed the 2009 bittersweet comedy (500) Days of Summer, so he's no stranger to telling films with heart. There are moments of comedy and levity to break up the more emotional moments, and he extracts the two performances from the leads that make the film what it is. It's also a wonderfully shot film, with the panoramic Florida coastline providing a beautiful setting for the somewhat unconventional family life on display.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
While the film suffers from predictability and (occasional) moments of too much schmaltz, the lead performances from Chris Evans and Mckenna Grace provide a captivating story that's emotionally charged and elevates the film above these issues. Highly recommended!   

Film Review: My Cousin Rachel (2017)

Being Rachel Weisz . . .

My Cousin Rachel (12A)

Starring: Rachel Weisz, Sam Claflin, Iain Glen, Holliday Grainger

Director: Roger Michelle

The Plot: Philip (Claflin) is a young man who has been raised by his cousin Ambrose, the owner of a working estate to which Philip will become heir. Spending time in Italy due to ill-health, Ambrose sends Philip letters announcing he has met and married a wonderful woman called Rachel (Weisz). These letters soon turn dark, with claims that Rachel is making him ill, and when Ambrose dies Philip is furious, believing her responsible. When she arrives at the estate, however, he quickly finds himself falling in love with his new cousin - a love that may prove to be dangerous . . .

Review: Period dramas aren't everyone's cup of tea, that's a given. For many people those words instantly equate to carriage journeys, formal dancing and long, boring scenes of people in high society taking tea and failing to vocalise their feelings. I for one have seen Pride and Prejudice more times that I can count, due to how often my mum watches it when I'm visiting my parents. As a 35 year-old male geek I'm definitely not in the target audience for these types of films - 2016's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is more my thing, which I fucking loved - but when they are well-made I can appreciate them. I enjoyed 2015's Far from the Madding Crowd, for example, which was a wonderfully shot and acted romantic drama.

I'm please to report that My Cousin Rachel places itself firmly in the realm of enjoyable period films. Adapted from the 1951 novel by Daphne du Maurier, the film is driven largely by a fantastic performance from Weisz and a more sexualised tone of obsession and desire that differentiates it from a more typical romance tale. Don't expect Tipping the Velvet levels of bodice-ripping here though - a quick sex scene in a field and a single f-bomb keep the film at a 12A certificate - but there's a darker, seductive tone to proceedings that keeps things interesting. It's also a beautifully shot film, with both the sunny vistas of Italy and the windswept cliffs of Devon adding character to the film and firmly establishing its evocation of the time period.

Weisz puts in a terrific performance here as Rachel: the character flits between grief, modesty and joy, all with the believable hints that this could be a charade and a far more cunning personality is in play. It's completely believable that Philip could be instantly disarmed by this woman's charm and allure, not hindered by the fact that Weisz herself is an incredibly beautiful woman. Claflin (who you might remember sporting a trident in The Hunger Games series) offers a solid performance as the naive Philip, also believable as a man whose youth and inexperience leads him to obsession in his pursuit of Rachel's love. There are times where the absurdity of his character's actions makes it difficult to feel sympathy for him, particularly as the film moves towards its conclusion, but you can see the intention here as the director does his best to make the audience guess who the victim of the tale really is.

The film has its flaws, however. The plot weakens as it progresses, and despite its best intentions it becomes really quite easy to spot where it's going and to see through the attempts at deception. Despite the excellent visual depiction of the time period, the range of minor supporting characters are a who's who of stereotypes, from the yarrr-ing old butler to the impressionable socialite girls, and both Iain Glen and Holliday Grainger, as Philip's guardian Nick and his daughter Louise (a second love interest for Philip), are underused. I would've liked to have seen more of them. While the film remains largely faithful to the novel, I can envisage fans of the story being unimpressed with the minor alterations to the conclusion.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

While fans of period dramas will no doubt get more enjoyment out of this than others, this is still an entertaining drama with a strong performance from Rachel Weisz. Recommended.

Film Review: The Mummy (2017)

Into darkness . . .

The Mummy (15)

Starring: Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Russell Crowe, Annabelle Wallis

Director: Alex Kurtzman


The Plot: In war-torn Iraq, soldier and antiquities thief Nick Morton (Cruise) discovers an Egyptian tomb containing the mummified remains of Ahmanet (Boutella), a princess who sold her soul to the dark god Set in a quest for power. Freed from her prison, Ahmanet crashes the plane carrying them to England - Morton mysteriously survives, but now has an strange link to the deadly creature. Aided by archaeologist and former lover Jenny (Wallis) and a certain Dr Hyde (Crowe), Morton most stop Ahmanet from unleashing hell on Earth . . .

Review: A shared universe is a concept that audiences are familiar and comfortable with these days, the most notable and successful of late being Marvel's cinematic universe. It's a win-win situation for the most part - studios get to make more pictures, which means more profits, and audiences get to consume more varied stories with interesting characters, culminating in that big pop when they all come together. As a teenager reading comics, did I ever think I'd see the Avengers together on the big screen? Hell no. Did I get chills when I first saw that sweeping shot of Tony, Cap et al preparing to battle? Fuck yes. More and more studios are following Marvel's lead, and Universal has decided it wants a piece of that action - and it's going big-dick about it. Universal is home to a who's-who of classic movie monsters, and they're digging deep into their pockets with plans for a whole series of films: as well as The Mummy, we're eventually going to see (or not) Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man, Javier Bardem as Frankenstein's monster, and that's just the tip of what Universal has deemed it's "Dark Universe" that will see Russell Crowe's Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde linking them all together. The Mummy opens rather effectively with the familiar Universal globe turning red and black, and boldly proclaiming DARK UNIVERSE - it's a shame then that the casual moviegoer, who knows nothing of the studio's grand plan, won't have a clue what this is supposed to represent.

(Incidentally, this isn't Universal's first attempt at a shared universe of late - 2014's Dracula Untold was intended to be the first in a series of connected films featuring their famous monsters, but the movie's poor performance effectively killed those plans.)

Alas then, that this new universe is off to a very poor start. The Mummy is a terrible film, plain and simple. It struggles with an identity crisis, not knowing whether it's trying to be a horror film, a comedy, or an action movie, and it ends up being an ineffective mix of all three. It's not scary, despite the 15 certificate here in the UK - some of the scenes are dark and moody, but it never feels tense or threatening. The attempts at humour fall flat, and the action scenes are (for the most part) limp. It doesn't help that the film is trying to set up this new shared universe as well as tell it's own tale, and it suffers for it, for we spend frustratingly little time with our new villain as instead the idea of a global organisation that hunts down monsters and is fronted by Dr Jekyll is forced down our throats, while the good doctor attempts to explain Ahmanet's rather ridiculous plan.

The root cause of the film's problems is the script, which is very, very bad. It actually starts out fairly well, with the discovery of Ahmanet's tomb a visually effective set-piece, but it all goes badly wrong from there. The plot is ridiculous, the dialogue terrible, and not even the star power of Tom Cruise can save it. It always saddens me when I see actors that I know are capable of terrific performances saddled with a dreadful script, and The Mummy is a particularly bad one for its stars. Cruise will emerge from this unscathed, as it will take more than one clunker to damage his draw at the box office, but it's remarkable just how bad his character is in this film - Morton is a prick; an all-round unlikeable thief of both precious relics and personal property alike, one who shoots his best friend and shows zero remorse about it, and tells desperately unfunny jokes. Cruise can't do anything with a character as badly written as this, and it's a million miles from his masterful performance in 1999's Magnolia. The other stars are similarly affected; Wallis is given little to do other than be the damsel in distress, a shame given that her character is intended to be a strong and intelligent woman; Jake Johnson (who I'm a big fan of from TV's New Girl), as Norton's best friend Chris, gets arguably the worst role in the film as their pairing just doesn't work, and his later reappearances as a ghost/vision - complete with awful CGI - feel very awkward. Crowe, another actor of great talent, doesn't seem to give a fuck and furiously chews the scenery upon his transformation into the decidedly cockney Mr Hyde - I was genuinely surprised that he didn't offer Morton a dry slap.

The one saving grace is Sofia Boutella as the titular mummy. As I mentioned earlier the character doesn't actually get a huge amount of screen time, and when she does, she doesn't have much dialogue either (probably a blessing, in this case), but what we do get is very physical performance that works well. While not remotely scary, she portrays a great sense of power, effortlessly leaping around and batting Morton around like a rag doll when she's restored to full power. Some of the film's best CGI is also visible in the character, with her split irises being particularly striking. Less can be said for the effects work of the other mummies that Ahmanet commands in the second and third act, however. It was a good idea by Universal to make the character of the mummy a woman - with the rest of the classic consortium predominantly male, a strong female villain is a welcome addition to the mix. I'd go so far as to say that Boutella's performance is the best part of the film, but given how bad the rest of it is, that's unfortunately not saying much.

(Where have you seen Boutella before, you may be wondering? She was the striking assassin with blades for feet in the excellent Kingsman: The Secret Service, and buried beneath copious face paint as the likeable alien warrior Jaylah in Star Trek: Beyond)

Many viewers will have fond memories of the 1999 film The Mummy with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. There's even a nice little nod to it here, as Jenny is seen holding the golden Book of Amun-Ra for a moment in Hyde's library. That film succeeded because it was an entertaining romp that was high on spectacle, genuinely funny, and most importantly it had two very likeable lead characters that were well fleshed-out and the audience genuinely gave a shit about. This new incarnation has none of these things, and suffers for it. With a better script this could have been the promising start of an exciting new series of films, but instead Universal have given us a real clunker. It's not the worst film I've seen so far in 2017 - that honour goes to Sleepless - but it slots itself firmly in at second place.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
A terrible script saddles this film with a dreadful plot, awful dialogue and poor peformances to boot. Not recommended!

As I close, I wonder where this leaves the fledgling Dark Universe. While the film has bombed - at time of writing it's only grossed £35million of it's £125million budget - Universal has already committed to others in the series, and both Morton and Ahmanet's characters are left in a position to return. The studio has some seriously deep pockets, but it cannot afford for the next film in the series to be as bad as this one . . .