The Mummy (2017)

photo courtesy of youtube.com

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

     Universal’s new monster movie franchise, christened the “Dark Universe,” launches this weekend with The Mummy. Not to be confused with 1999’s The Mummy series starring Brendan Frasier, this rendition pits Tom Cruise against an ancient Egyptian princess and is set to connect (in sequels) with other characters—like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, Frankenstein, and even the Phantom of the Opera—from monster-movie glory days. If that excites you, you should probably lower your expectations right now, because The Mummy is a dud, through and through.

     In The Mummy, profiteer Nick Morton (Tom Cruise), partner Chris Vail (Jake Johnson of New Girl fame), and archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) stumble upon an ancient tomb designed to imprison the Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella). When Ahmanet breaks free from captivity, her mission becomes clear: to fulfill a terrible oath to the god of death, Set—an oath which inescapably links her to Nick.

photo courtesy of craveonline.com

     The Mummy is a classic example of spectacle over substance, plot over characters. Above all, the movie is concerned with world-building; as the first installment in a budding franchise, it bears the weight of three movies’ worth of exposition. The story, which is fairly simple on paper, gets caught up in big-budget moments, kooky coincidences, and overdone tropes that make it difficult to care about any of the proceedings and easy to get lost in them.

     Characters, meanwhile, get the short end of the stick. Frankly, no character or relationship is remotely compelling, and the filmmakers seem to know that because they spend almost no time trying to develop them. Each character (villain included) gets his or her obligatory backstory blurb and nothing more. 

photo courtesy of digitaltrends.com

     The film struggles to find its tone, setting itself up like a “dark” National Treasure (complete with light quips and friendly quibbling among our main characters) and positioning Nick Morton as a pseudo-Indiana Jones. There’s a concerted effort to strike a balance between an ominous, horror-movie atmosphere and the light-hearted humor that marks many modern, big-budget outings. Unfortunately, the movie fails on both fronts.

     There are a few solid scares and a few solid jokes, but only a fraction of the attempts land with the audience. The movie’s marketing doesn’t help on this count, because most items of interest were featured prominently in the trailers. The movie’s best sequence, for instance, is the Mummy-engineered plane crash, which boasts a few impressive zero-gravity shots but feels totally unsurprising for those who’ve kept up with the marketing.

photo courtesy of variety.com

     In an unusual turn of events, Tom Cruise is altogether out of his element in the main role. He manages to pass off for a young, can-do action hero despite being 54 (!), but the role’s too quippy and tongue-in-cheek for Tom’s style of delivery. To be fair, he was probably cast as much to add gravitas to Universal’s Dark Universe as to actually fit the part (like his costar Russell Crowe, who plays Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde).

     The film might scrape by if it managed to pack in some interesting mythology, but The Mummy just can’t muster it. The only glimpse of mythos comes in the film’s opening prologue, which explains Ahmanet’s origins; the rest of the film leaves the subject relatively untouched. As in so many recent blockbusters, the explanation of evil we get is that same unintelligent and overdone trope: “This (insert villain) has gone by many names through the centuries… (insert names of various religious figures, ancient and modern).” Nothing new to see there.

photo courtesy of manapop.com

     There are fragments of a good script buried underneath the surface. The film includes some interesting set pieces here and there (the aforementioned plane crash), and the film’s humor and jump scares suffice to maintain some level of interest. The real shame is not that it’s a bad or boring movie—which it is—but that it blows a big opportunity.

     The monster-characters in Universal’s grab bag are prime real estate for big-budget remakes and reboots; the soil, in other words, is fruitful. But instead of harvesting any of the interesting and spooky dynamics that they innately bring to the table, The Mummy sends the opposite message: we can take any engaging character or scenario and drop them into a generic adventure story. With a clunky plot, lackluster characters, and little to keep an audience invested, The Mummy is a disappointing start for Universal.

HOW NOT TO BUILD A SHARED UNIVERSE

photo courtesy of cgsociety.org

     Ever since Marvel Studios busted the filmmaking world wide open with its comic book-inspired shared universe structure, everyone and their mother is trying to build a so-called “shared universe.” It’s all the rage. Seriously, everyone from Luke Skywalker to King Kong is signing up for one. There’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the DC Extended Universe, the Disney-controlled Star Wars canon, the MonsterVerse, a failed Sony Spider-verse, a new Sony Spider-verse, a budding Transformers-verse, a Conjuring-verse, and now Universal’s Dark Universe—so far.

     The MCU’s model is undoubtedly enticing; ever since Iron Man in 2008, Marvel Studios has seen skyrocketing interest, critical reception, and box office receipts for their films. It’s natural for studios to want to cash in. But while studios are eager to mimic the Marvel style and reap the financial reward, most of them don’t seem to be paying attention to what fuels Marvel’s machine… and then they’re surprised when their efforts underperform at the box office. (Keep in mind that this is actually Universal’s second attempt at launching a shared monster universe—the first stalled out after Dracula Untold did poorly back in 2014.)

Dracula Untold, Universal's first and failed attempt at launching a shared universe based on its classic monster properties. photo courtesy of youtube.com

     What’s the secret to Marvel’s success? Quality, character-driven movies that are capable of standing on their own. The shared universe formula works, but only if its individual pieces work, too. Studios that rush to push together just anything to build their universe forget how Marvel began—with Iron Man, which is still one of their best movies to date. Iron Man is an action-adventure blockbuster, but it packs in heart, humor, and some of the best characters in modern superhero movies. A good story is the best foundation of a shared universe.

     And as the first film in the MCU, Iron Man didn’t do much world-building at all. The introduction of Nick Fury and the potential for the Avengers team came in a post-credits scene. The actual movie prioritized telling a good story about the character at hand. 

The Dark Universe logo. photo courtesy of comingsoon.net

     Iron Man 2, however, gave way to set-up for future installments, which in large part explains its place as one of the poorest MCU films in terms of critical reception. The Mummy veers closer to Iron Man 2; instead of telling a good story, it spends half of its run-time teasing the future of the franchise. But unlike Iron Man 2, The Mummy doesn't have a healthy store of fan goodwill to count on. 

     Getting the franchise started on the right foot is paramount. Can a shared universe survive with a bad first impression? That’s still to be determined. Take the DCEU. It’s been plagued by a bad reputation until just recently. To turn it around, all that was needed was (you guessed it) a good movie. Wonder Woman dared to take the time to develop a full and engaging story about a character, and that success might spell a new era for the franchise as a whole. Yet even her introduction may not be enough to lift the clouds surrounding the DCEU—we’ll have to wait until Justice League to see if her influence will lead to real changes. 

photo courtesy of slashgear.com