I haven’t seen the Brendan Fraser movies in a long time, but some moments stuck with me; I’ve just watched the 1932 “Mummy,” and Boris Karloff was both creepy and riveting; and I used to ride on the “Revenge of the Mummy” ride at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, and that was f***ing scary and fun.
But what about this reboot? It’s supposed to be the start of a Dark Universe series (You know like MonsterVerse with “Godzilla” and “Kong: Skull Island”), but it’s not off to a fresh start. In fact, this has broken my Five Sad Face diet, which has gone on for nine months. How could this have happened? Well, it’s the kind of reboot that is loud, cantankerous, and badly acted.
Tom Cruise has made a number of great movies like “Top Gun,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Minority Report,” and “Jerry Maguire,” but even the greats can fall flat every once in a while. Let’s start in Iraq, where his character Nick and a soldier named Chris (Jake Johnson in his worst role to date) are both running from terrorists, bickering with each other, and falling in ditches, where they find an entrance to a forgotten tomb.
Next, comes archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), who continues their bickering, while exploring the tomb, and loading the tomb of the evil Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) on their plane.
Then, Chris gets possessed by Ahmanet and shot by Nick; and finally, birds attack their plane, leaving Nick to give Jenny her parachute to live, while he crash lands. He wakes up in the morgue, alive, because he is now cursed by the evil princess, who raises Hell in the U.K.
I know you’re asking this: “Why was “The Mummy” such a bad movie?” Because the writing is overshadowed by its bad acting, loud noises, rats, spiders, sandstorms, unfunny jokes, and irritating arguments. But that’s not all: when Russell Crowe transforms from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde, you’d almost wished you saw his satanic gangster character in “Winter’s Tale.”
Again, Tom Cruise has made a number of entertaining movies, and I know he’ll continue making them. But for now, I trust his recent “Mission: Impossible” sequels and his “Edge of Tomorrow” director Doug Liman to tame him. I can’t say the same for director Alex Kurtzmann (the producer of the “Star Trek” reboots), who didn’t do any better than his first directing job: “People Like Us.”
☠ Poison for the Mind (0/4)
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