The Mummy

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.

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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 1^st 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