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 . . .