When they announced they were rebooting ‘The Mummy‘ without Brendan Fraser – well, we didn’t quite riot on the streets, but we certainly got mad enough to rant about it online. Brendan Fraser made that goddamn movie, and any attempt to make it without him is rude at best and sacrilege at worst.
And it appears our fears weren’t unfounded. The Tom Cruise-led reboot is being absolutely savaged by the critics, who are painting it dull, unfunny, monstrous, awful, disappointing, and “by far the worst movie Tom Cruise has ever made.”
It stars a 54-year-old Cruise as freelance raider and general dickhead Nick Morton (the classic Cruise character who ‘just needs to grow up’, except that Cruise is now well and truly middle-aged), Sofia Boutella as Ahmanet, an ancient Egyptian princess who was so evil in life she was mummified and buried alive, and Russell Crowe as the evil expert Dr. Henry Jekyll, who needs daily injections to prevent himself from becoming Mr. Hyde and is almost definitely the planned star for a Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde standalone movie in the near future.
In fact, one of the main bugbears of almost every reviewer is that Universal used the film to introduce it’s ‘Dark Universe‘ (to rival those of DC and Marvel) before the damn thing had even started, giving the whole film a distinctly unearned air.
‘The Mummy’ is currently sitting at a dismally low 28% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so who the hell knows what’ll happen to the rest of its universe. The critics are going in.
“All of this is to say that not only is “The Mummy” the worst movie that Tom Cruise has ever made, it’s also obviously the worst movie that Tom Cruise has ever made — it stands out like a flat note on a grand piano. It’s not that Cruise hasn’t had misfires before (and between “Rock of Ages,” “Oblivion,” and “Jack Reacher: Never Stop Never Reaching” they’re happening at a faster rate), but “The Mummy” is the first of his films that doesn’t feel like a Tom Cruise movie. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that it never could have been good. It’s an irredeemable disaster from start to finish, an adventure that entertains only via glimpses of the adventure it should have been. It’s the kind of movie that Tom Cruise became a household name by avoiding at all costs.”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire.
“Even putting aside the basic filmmaking issues the movie has, where The Mummy suffers is trying to kickstart an entire universe in one film. If the first act of the movie was dedicated to setting up the mummy’s origin story and explaining how this monster reemerged, the rest of it was spent trying to explain why she was only a vessel for a much bigger story focused on a secret organisation. The Mummy wants to tell a story about extraordinary beings with unbelievable powers and grotesque physical transformations; more to the point, The Mummy wants to tell a story about struggling with being exceptional and the downsides that accompany that realisation.”
– Julia Alexander, Polygon.
“However, this plot point [whereby Ahmanet needs to find a man-husk to honour a deal] means Ahmanet spends the entire movie chasing after Nick—when she’s not restoring herself by sucking the life out of every male who crosses her path, that is. Yes. She is a literal man-eater. What is the point, exactly, of having the Mummy be a woman if she requires a man to make her powers complete? “I will be your queen,” she promises Nick. But… why can’t she be a powerful, wicked, awesomely destructive monster who also just happens to be female?
– Cheryle Eddy, Gizmodo.
“The problem at its heart is that the reality of what the movie is — a Tom Cruise vehicle — is at war with the material. The actor, at 54, is still playing that old Cruise trope, the selfish cocky semi-scoundrel who has to grow up. The trouble is that Cruise, at least in a high-powered potboiler like this one, is so devoted to maintaining his image as a clear and wholesome hero that his flirtation with the dark side is almost entirely theoretical. As Universal’s new “Dark Universe” (of which “The Mummy” is the first instillment) unfolds, I wouldn’t hold my breath over which side is going to win, or how many more films it will take to play that out. It’s not just that there isn’t enough at stake (though there isn’t). It’s that the movie doesn’t seem to know how little at stake there is.”
– Owen Gleiberman, Variety.
“This has some nice moments but is basically a mess, with various borrowings, including some mummified bits from An American Werewolf in London. The plot sags like an aeon-old decaying limb: a jumble of ideas and scenes from what look like different screenplay drafts. There are two separate ancient “tomb-sites” which have to be busted open: one in London and one in Iraq. In the end, having encouraged us to cheer for Tom Cruise as an all-around hero, the film tries to have it both ways and confer upon him some of the sepulchral glamour of evil, and he almost has something Lestat-ish or vampiric about him. Yet the film really won’t make up its mind. It’s a ragbag of action scenes which needed to be bandaged more tightly.”
– Pete Bradshaw, The Guardian.
ok, NOW the embargo is lifted! THE MUMMY is trying to be really goofy and really gritty at the same time and it fails at both
— David Sims (@davidlsims) June 7, 2017
Tom Cruise feels like he’s pretending to be 25 years old and it’s very, uh, strained. But hey, Russell Crowe turns purple at one point
— David Sims (@davidlsims) June 7, 2017
anyway, go watch Stephen Sommers’ THE MUMMY (1999). GOOD MOVIE!
— David Sims (@davidlsims) June 7, 2017
oh but I want to make something clear: I will see EVERY Dark Universe movie
— David Sims (@davidlsims) June 7, 2017
the whole thing felt a little too HOSTILE to me
— David Sims (@davidlsims) June 7, 2017
yeah, and it feels like he precedes each one by looking at the camera and yelling “GET READY FOR A ZING!”
— David Sims (@davidlsims) June 7, 2017
– David Sims, The Atlantic
But perhaps this is the most savage of all.
I’m not a critic, but I got into a critics screening of The Mummy, so I decided that means I should write a review. Pretty sure I nailed it. pic.twitter.com/qc1Kxz5KqK
— Ted Geoghegan (@tedgeoghegan) June 7, 2017
DON’T MAKE A MUMMY MOVIE WITHOUT BRENDAN FRASER
When you see the reviews for the new Mummy pic.twitter.com/hb2TsOHtmt
— Patrick Monahan (@pattymo) June 7, 2017
Photo: Universal.
