MUMMY ISSUES
Expected to be the first of a monster franchise, this lifeless flick should stay buried
‘THE Mummy” sucked the life out of me, and I’m not talking about the murderous practices of its ancient, four-pupiled villain. This mess of a monster movie was intended to launch Universal’s new Dark Universe cinematic franchise — bringing back classic characters such as the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man and the Creature From the Black Lagoon — but turns out to be a master class in how not to do it. When your film makes people pine for the 1999 Brendan Fraser vehicle — as early audiences are doing on Twitter — you know you’re doing it wrong.
The most basic rule of all is that a franchise needs characters that you love. The opening scenes of “The Mummy” throw us into the action with Tom Cruise’s antiquities-mercenary character, Nick Morton, without bothering to make us like or even know him. But it’s pretty clear that Indiana Jones, he ain’t. Eventually, Nick gets a love interest in the blond, entirely bland, archaeologist Jenny (Annabelle Wallis), and their lack of chemistry is really something. It’s hard to tell if it’s Cruise or the dragging weight of the movie, but he’s almost totally devoid of the star power that makes the “Mission: Impossible” movies compulsively watchable. Every time he stops to have an awkward conversation with the woman he’s supposedly into, he looks like he’s dreaming about the next time he gets to run fast or jump off a building.
But Cruise is one-upped in the bad-casting department by Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll, whose “Prodigium” is a state-of-the-art warehouse for captured monsters that looks to be a home base for Dark Universe movies. If you’re going to have a guy with an insane alter ego, for Pete’s sake, cast someone who’s got it in him to be deliciously terrifying. The bloated Crowe, when he turns into Hyde, mostly looks like he’s belligerently drunk and about to chuck a phone at someone’s head.
Also, if the Prodigium is the Dark Universe’s answer to Stark Enterprises, mission not accomplished. Jekyll’s main objective seems to be keeping monsters here to experiment on them, and watching Sofia Boutella’s mummy manacled on her knees and writhing as mercury is shot into her veins made me pretty sure I never wanted another look inside the place.
To be fair, Boutella, as the mummy Ahmanet, packs a wallop when she’s actually visible, but more often than not she’s either in the process of CGI de-aging or aging, or summoning a swarm of digital vermin.
“The Mummy” is only the tip of the monster iceberg; there are planned reboots of “Bride of Frankenstein” and “The Invisible Man,” with Javier Bardem as Frankenstein’s monster and Johnny Depp as Mr. Invisible. You know, the two guys currently starring in the other worst movie of summer, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.” Angelina Jolie’s name has been floated for the bride role, which could be a saving grace; she seems like someone who might already own the costume as a go-to Halloween get-up. What isn’t clear is whether Universal plans to make any bold casting choices at all. These are the ones that usually keep audiences coming back: Jennifer Lawrence in “The Hunger Games”; Chris Evans as Captain America; and, well, that Israeli lady currently stomping bad guys and box office records.
Also, you’re supposed to leave a movie in a linked franchise anxious to see what happens next and your favorite players popping up in future installments. If I never see Cruise’s character again — what was his name? — it’ll be too soon. The whole movie, lurching from one set piece to another undead-style, feels like a handful of post-credit teasers stitched together into the imitation of a film.
The biggest drag of all is that monster movies used to be fun. It wasn’t because of their grandiose special effects; it was that they had charismatic characters, cheeky humor, genuine scares and, often, set pieces made out of cardboard.
“The Mummy” begins by quoting an “Egyptian prayer of resurrection,” which the studio, with this slate of reboots, better hope is some strong dark magic.