The Mummy

Dir: Alex Kurtzman

2017

***

Alex Kurtzman’s adventure horror is the latest in a long line of reboots that The Mummy has endured since Karl Freund’s 1932 classic and is to be the first film of a series of reboots centring around Universal’s Monster collection of classic Gods and monsters that they are calling the ‘Dark Universe’. They are indeed creating a universe in which these monsters are real, ‘universe’ being the common word for franchise films these days but I can’t help but think they thought up the name because it is close to Universal – indeed, the titled graphics merge their classic title graphics into the new one. I see what they’re doing, very clever I’m sure, but these classics should be more than a gimmick and treated with a little more respect if they want anyone to actually see them or take them seriously. I’ve noticed many critics and reviewers suggest, incorrectly, that this is a reboot of the Brendon Frasier series of Mummy films. It’s not, and any critic suggesting as much has no business writing about film. However, Universal clearly wanted to recreated a little bit of the magic that the first Brendon Frasier Mummy film had (that the second, third and fourth Brendon Frasier Mummy didn’t). This was their first mistake. 2017’s The Mummy has not received much praise, but to be fair, a lot of people wrote it off before it even premiered but it is true that it suffers from a few silly mistakes. Firstly, Tom Cruise, as good as he is, is not right in the lead role. It is well known that the film went through several directors during pre-production, with Len Wiseman leaving in 2013 and then Andres Muschietti leaving the year after. Alex Kurtzman does a reasonably good job but he’s under qualified having only directed one film, the awful People Like Us in 2012. However, I think Cruise might have been the real problem. He’s obviously got loads of experience but just after he joined the project in Nov 2015, it was reported that he had been given excessive control over the film and firm control of nearly every aspect of production and post-production, including re-writing the script and editing to his specifications, telling Kurtzman how to direct on set, and enlarging his role while downplaying Sofia Boutella's character – the Mummy itself. Universal contractually guaranteed Cruise control of most aspects of the project, from script approval to post-production decisions. Essentially, a film that should have been about the Mummy became something of a vanity project. Cruise, while being himself, was also trying his hand at being Chris Pratt. Chris Pratt would have been perfect in the role, typecast as he is becoming, but Pratt or someone like him would have been a much better actor in the role. Sofia Boutella is a beautiful lady, she is not a monster. Sure, it makes sense that an Egyptian mummy should look Egyptian but I personally prefer my Mummies to be somewhat zombie like, slow moving and wrapped in bandages, you know, like mummies. Here she looked as beautiful as she always does, just covered in dust and tattoos. Monsters should be scary and she wasn’t scary at all, and this was their introductory monster? I’m not knocking Sofia Boutella, I get it, it is all in her eyes, but thanks to the Cruise, she gets second billing, not even, in fact she gets forth billing. The direction doesn’t always work either, some of the catacomb set pieces look amazing but then some of the more day to day locations look like cheap theatre sets. I honestly didn’t know Russell Crowe was going to be Dr. Henry Jekyll before watching and it came as a nice surprise, however, that initial surprise turned into bitter disappointment once Mr Hyde finally made an appearance. Turns out Dr. Henry Jekyll looks just like an overweight Russell Crowe, while Mr Hyde looks like an overweight Russell Crowe painted grey. Not the same grey as the Mummy, but similar. There are times when everything looks grey in Kurtzman/Cruise’s film to be honest but there are aspects of the film I did like, nearly even loved. I wanted creepy dead zombie-type mummies and, thankfully, there are some. These mummies aren’t technically mummies but they are near as damn it. The action tends to get in the way of what is actually a really good horror but some of the visuals are brilliant, they needed a big orchestral score to go with them, but they did impress. I thought the updated story was very clever, mixing in realistic situations and current events quite intelligently. I liked the American Werewolf in London-style twist to it too and I liked how the characters were written. It really only needed a few tweaks. A few tweaks, a different cast, a better score, more mummy, more bandages, a massive Mr Hyde and less Tom Cruise. I’m intrigued by the whole Dark Universe thing and I’m even more intrigued by the fact that Bride of Frankenstein is to be the next film but they desperately need to learn some lessons from The Mummy before they continue. Ditch the awkward humour, it doesn’t work and is nearly always badly timed. Pump up the horror and keep up with the up-dated story. 2014’s Dracula Untold was meant to be the first film of the Dark Universe but no one liked it and it has been brushed under the carpet by Universal. It’s shocking that they’ve almost made the same mistake, I’m still intrigued but they really have to up their game.