Nerds That Geek Movie Review: 'The Mummy (2017)'

Written by Mike Cervantes

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

The burdens of creating a cinematic universe are not as plentiful as many studios would have you believe, in order to have a film as successful as Guardians of the Galaxy, you need not imitate its soundtrack, composed of a series of ye olde top 40's hits, as they did with Suicide Squad. But, in the case of Universal Studios’ second attempt at promoting an interconnected universe of action films based on its legendary film monsters, imitation is truly the purest form of flattery. Take an already well-established film franchise from well before the spawn period, which would be The Mummy trilogy, beginning in 1999. Hint at the existence of connectivity between a seemingly unrelated film, 2014’s Dracula Untold.  Toss in a few unassuming A-list actors like Tom Cruise and Russel Crowe, and fabricate a reason as to why all this should be set to boil in the same pot. What is probably the most praiseworthy of this particular remake of The Mummy, is that this all gets done within the span of this one film.
​
Tom Cruise is Nick Morton, our roguish archaeologist protagonist. He and his partner Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) literally create in international incident for the sole purpose of dropping a bomb in the middle of an Iranian village, uncovering an ancient tomb that they intend to loot. After a bit of saucy dialogue with female roguish archaeologist Jennifer Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) Nick invariably does the thing that awakens the 890 year-old curse within the tomb. The rest of the film moves forward exactly as you’d expect, with Tom Cruise narrowly avoiding death at every turn while he’s both internally haunted and physically pursued by the titular mummy Ahmanet, played by Sofia Boutella, who wants to jump his bones and then sacrifice him so the Egyptian god Set will return to the world of the living.

At first, it doesn’t seem like this movie strays too far from that initial Mummy franchise, with even Tom Cruise playing a role that probably evokes Brendan Fraser’s career more than his acting ability. Ahmanet often uses tricks that serve as reminders, if not direct ripoffs of the Mummy in the original trilogy: bringing the dead back to life and sending swarms of scarabs, oops, I mean black crows and camel spiders, after our heroes at every turn. However, this soon merely becomes what the film WANTS you to think, for as we get into the second act, and Russel Crowe makes his entrance, we immediately begin to see the proverbial universe expansion.

---

Crowe’s character has a direct link to the classic movie monsters on Universal’s back burner, and while I won’t spoil the inevitable character reveal, he is very much the Phil Coulson/Bruce Wayne/Guy Lapointe of this would-be universe. He enters the picture with the intent to capture Ahmonet and the curse-transformed Nick and dissect him so he can continue his research on the pantheon of evil in the universe, a plot point that only fills about 20 minutes of the movie’s total runtime before Ahmanet rears her ugly head again, and they play up to her inevitable demise in a London sewer among the undead legions of crusader knights that are inexplicably buried there. Tom Cruise predictably pulls off some counter-mummy magic of his own and the whole thing ends in a comparative anticlimax to the original movies.
​
Probably the most interesting element brought to this film is by Tom Cruise himself, who plays his part as if he’s still Mission Impossible’s Ethan Hunt, only without the obvious charm. The fact that the mummy’s curse has left him deathless is a good in-plot reason for Cruise to pull off his usual repertoire of impossible stunt escapes, and in-character he is redeemed by both his attraction of the movie’s female monster, and the love towards the film’s only other female lead. It works, I suppose, if you like Tom Cruise, and you assume this is the only formula wherein Tom Cruise can operate. But, it invariably comes off as off-putting, particularly to other members of the cast, who all seem to suffer gruesome fates while Tom remains unscratched. It’s hard to see him get a leg over literally everyone, including Russel Crowe, who still has a dozen of these movies to appear in. It’s also disheartening to see that, though this movie broke the glass ceiling in terms of portrayal of famous movie monsters, that Boutella’s Mummy only exists to seduce, terrorize, and ultimately be bested by The Cruise. I won’t even trouble you with how eye-rolling the ending is.

All in all. It’s a decent popcorn flick. It will remind you of the best parts of both the Universal Monsters franchise, and Tom Cruise’s career as it existed over the past, oh, twenty years? However, I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the movies that will supposedly 'link' to this one. The Universal Monsters franchise is definitely one that has some potential, and in some ways, was the 'expanded universe' of its day, creating a continuity between its classic films wherein Frankenstein got to meet The Wolf Man. But, I just can’t be sure that a takeoff, like what was given by this film, won’t wind up inevitably giving us another Van Helsing. 

---