- Actors: Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Sofia Boutella, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance
- Director: Alex Kurtzman
- Writers: David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, Dylan Kussman
- Producers: Alex Kurtzman, Chris Morgan, Sean Daniel, Sarah Bradshaw
- Format: NTSC, Subtitled
- Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (DTS 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (DTS 5.1)
- Subtitles: French, Spanish
- Subtitles for the Hearing Impaired: English
- Region: Region A/1
- Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
- Number of discs: 2
- Rated: PG-13
- Studio: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
- Release Date: September 12, 2017
- Digital Copy Expiration Date: May 2, 2018
Despite the
horrible response by audiences and critics alike, I didn’t think The Mummy was a complete trainwreck.
There was much about it that didn’t work, and very little that was as
successful as it needed to be, but the biggest problem with the film is its
inability to carry the weight of the cinematic universe that is meant to
follow. As a standalone film, audiences probably would have dismissed The Mummy
as an inconsequential summer film, without the high level of scrutiny it
received as the first entry into the Dark Universe franchise. And this seems to
be a trend, as each effort made by Universal to revive their once thriving
cinematic horror department to the quality of the past has met similar failure.
We saw it with Dracula Untold (2014)
as well as The Wolfman (2010), and
now The Mummy’s failure is likely
giving the studio pause about their plans to revive countless other iconic
monsters.
Tom Cruise is
the most surprising part of The Mummy,
and apparently his involvement greatly changed the direction of the project. On
one hand, this may have resulted in some of the action-oriented sequences that
work a great deal better than some of the horror. On the other hand, this may
disappoint fans that specifically watched this movie because it was supposed to
be the beginning of a horror cinematic universe. Either way, the result is a
film that has as many failures (if not more) than it does successes. Aside from
a brief prologue, the film actually starts out as more of a straight-up buddy
action film than anything resembling horror, and I would have preferred the
entire film stay that way, especially with the chemistry between Cruise and
Johnson.
After the bit of
period context narrated by Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe), we jump to modern
times as U.S.
soldier/mercenary Nick Morton (Cruise) and his partner/friend Chris Vail (Jake
Johnson) use the war in Iraq
to hunt down valuable treasures to sell for profit. After calling in an air
strike on a village overrun by insurgents, Nick and Christ end up uncovering
the tomb of Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who sold her soul for power.
Joined by archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), Nick uncovers the tomb
and exposes the long-hidden evil. Before long, the spirit of Ahmanet arises to
cause havoc and destruction.
In an
unexplained (or simply illogical) coincidence, Nick is chosen by Ahmanet to be
her partner, sparing his life from a devastating plane crash only to spend a
majority of the film hunting him down. Nick, on the other hand, spends much of
the film trying to protect Jenny, who he had a brief fling with. Despite
building him up as an immoral thief, it inevitably turns out that Nick is a
pretty decent guy. This will become more important if the plans to connect all
of the horror films and monsters ever come into fruition. The beginnings of
this can be seen in seemingly unrelated sequences that show Dr. Jekyll’s
tendency to transform into a beast when he doesn’t take the proper medication.
If this is any indication of what a Jekyll and Hyde film may look like, there
is no rush to give him a standalone movie.
Much of this
film is too heavily reliant on bad CGI, despite a mildly impressive plane
sequence that used practical effects and an actual zero gravity plane to film.
The scope of the movie is massive, but somehow never impressive. Like with many
of the superhero films that this cinematic universe is imitating, the use of
bad CGI doesn’t help ground the movie in realism enough to believe the
absurdity of the story onscreen. Fans looking forward to a horror franchise
like the ones created for superheroes would be better off anticipating the continuation
of Godzilla and King Kong and their integration into the same universe instead.
The Blu-ray
release of The Mummy comes with a DVD
and a Digital HD copy of the film, along with plenty of special features for
the few people who actually enjoyed the film. I found it to be far less
offensive than the reviews had me expecting, but I still had little interest in
many of the extras. The first among these is a collection of deleted/extended
scenes, just in case the film didn’t feel too long already. There is also a
feature commentary track with director Alex Kurtzman and cast members Sofia
Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, and Jake Johnson. Separately, there is a featurette
with an in-depth conversation between Kurtzman and Cruise about the film. There
are also seven brief featurettes about the production, ranging from brief
promotional features about the characters to examinations of the special
effects used in various sequences. Both the CGI used for Jekyll’s evil
counterpart and the practical effects used in the plane crash are examined. The
last extra is a few minutes of an animated graphic novel telling Ahmanet’s
story.
Entertainment Value:
6.5/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 6/10
Historical
Significance: 6/10
Special Features: 7.5/10
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