A treasure-pilfering American soldier, Nick Morton (Tom Cruise), accidentally stumbles upon an ancient Egyptian tomb, thousands of miles from where it should be, in Iraq. In a hurry to escape the tomb before terrorist return to destroy it, Morton accidentally releases an ancient evil, wrapped up in the Mummy.
We say, “The Mummy is fine, if your expectations are low.”
TAYLOR: Universal Pictures has made this film under its new banner, “Dark Universe,” which is meant to breathe new life into the classic, Universal monster movies of the past. The Mummy is the first film and isn’t too bad, but also isn’t too good. It’s difficult to tell how cheesy the filmmakers intended it to be, but I’ll put it somewhere on the scale to between “very cheesy” and “too cheesy.”
HOWE: I would say it is a little like Stilton: it stinks but I love it. I don’t know why you are knocking it so bad because the film companies are giving us so much poop nowadays, way too many superhero films, very poor horror movies, the list goes on. What The Mummy gives us is a throwback to the good ol’ days, the fun in this is packed in like sardines, the action is non-stop and the dialogue is easy enough for the younger audience to understand what is going on.
TAYLOR: Cheese is fine and I like it. As well, if the intentions of the Dark Universe films is to bring back Dr. Jekyll, the Invisible Man, Frankenstein, Dracula, the Creature from the Black Lagoon or whoever, I would hope that there’s a big ol’ slice melted over each film. However, The Mummy is so unoriginal it becomes an exercise in displaying the cinematic hallmarks of past films. Every frame in this film reminds the audience of something they’ve already seen and while that makes for a familiar, comfortable film, discerning viewers’ suspension of disbelief will have to be held consciously higher in order for them to enjoy it. Thus, the warning: Keep your expectations low. Go in expecting a cheeseball throwback of a popcorn flick and you might feel that it wasn’t a waste of money.
HOWE: I am looking forward to seeing if they revive the old classics, it wouldn’t be the worst idea. In fact it will make a nice change to see some cheese rather than more comic book movies, that are meant to be fun, but just seem to be getting darker and more sinister than ever before.
Taylor givesThe Mummy 2.5 irises out of 5.
Howe gives it 3.5 rubies out of 5.
— Brian Taylor and Peter Howe are film reviewers based in Vernon. Their column, Reel Reviews, appears every Friday.