It's taken me 2 weeks
to write a review that I feel is publishable, mostly because I felt
more like writing about the pizza I had afterwards. That is both an
insult to the film and a complement to the pizza.
The Partially Educated Review
In 50 Words or Less: In a
year that has already given us xXx
3 and
Power Rangers,
it is this that will most likely go down as the year's most generic
action film.
---
Truth be told, I don't actually have much of a problem with Tom
Cruise. Outside of the stain on cinema that is Top Gun (I'll
deal with that another day), I can't think of any of his films that I
harbour all that much of a dislike towards and when he's on form he
produces bangers like Jerry Maguire and
the Mission: Impossible
franchise. I don't want to get stuck in a religion themed
conversation with the guy, but I'm quite happy to sit down and watch
one of his films.
The Mummy, though... It's a
real misfire.
First off, this whole Dark Universe
thing that Universal are trying to make into their juggernaut. It's
obviously not going to work, particularly looking at the returns this
film's (not) making. It was more than a little bit arrogant of them
to start touting this as the franchise starter, as there was very
little to suggest that this would have legs. Though Tom Cruise hasn't
fallen from grace quite like, say, Johnny Depp (also set to become
involved in the franchise; some solid business strategy there), he
has fallen victim to the overall fall in box office returns and it's
reached the point where his films have actively started to make a
loss. Throw in the fact that The Mummy
franchise hardly went out on a high-note last time around and you've
got to assume that some mightily glowing reviews would have been
needed to give this one a chance.
In qualitative terms, The
Mummy isn't quite the disaster
that some are declaring it to be. There's nothing to take it above
average though. The action sequences are as close as it gets to
actually giving us something of interest, but it does throw out its
still lacking apex (Cruise once again doing something stupid in a
plane) way too early, meaning the ones that follow feel like a whole
load of nothing. Outside of those sequences is where the flaws really
start to crawl out. The dialogue is particularly teeth grinding,
showing about as much imagination as a Disney live-action division
creative meeting.
It's not helped by actors who are known for being elevated by good
material, rather than their ability to do that elevation themselves.
Yes, that is partly aimed at Cruise, but Annabelle Wallis (chief
sidekick) is considerably lacking in much of a presence, while Sofia
Boutella's sarcophagus dweller mostly just moans like her death came
about on the verge of climax and she's stuck in a continuous loop.
Then we have Russell Crowe...
Now, I've said some nasty things
about Russell Crowe's recent acting and they're not going to get any
better here but, for the sake of balance, do go and read my review of
The Nice Guys in which
I was incredibly positive about him. When he's on form, I like him,
but sweet merciful crap he's bad in this film. At points, he's
bringing back the Man Of Steel
gravitas which is always welcome.
However, the fact that he's playing
Henry Jekyll would suggest there's going to be a little something
extra to the character. There is, but we'd have all been better off
if it had stayed contained. If you like defending Crowe against
criticism over his frequent issues with ascribing to the less is more
mentality, you might want to pretend this didn't happen. It's like he
graduated from the Guy Ritchie School of Geezers with a 1st
Class PHD in Dick Van Dyke. Yes, it's even worse than this.
So The Mummy is definitely a misfire. To say that the most fun it gave me was with
its frequent use of camel spiders as I sat next to a true
arachnophobe is testament to how forgettable it is. As well as proof
of my own enjoyment in the mild suffering of others.
FOUR out of 10
