REVIEW: The MummyBy Quinn OxleyJune 10, 2017Mild spoilers ahead, but the movie was awful, so don’t bother.
Sometimes I watch a movie and I’m thrilled by all the things its creators have done right. Sometimes I watch a movie and nothing really stands out to me. Then there are times when I watch movies like The Mummy, and all I can really do when I’m done is ask, “What is life? What is anything? Why does this exist? Why does Hollywood want us to suffer?â€
Tom Cruise is… I don’t know. He does something. He’s in Iraq with the comedy relief character, Jake Johnson’s character on New Girl. (Trust me; they’re one and the same.) After an airstrike reveals an Egyptian tomb (in Iraq for some reason?), Nick (Tom Cruise Nick, not Jake Johnson Nick) unleashes ancient evil upon the world in the form of a contrived backstory you’ll get to know better than his own character.
No. No. No. No. No.
First major problem: tonal shifts. The Mummy can’t decide whether it wants to be a funny and quirky adventure film or a serious thriller. Exhibit A: (name redacted because spoilers) is bitten by a spider and turns into an actual slow-walking, no-talking zombie. (Pronoun redacted because spoilers) then reappears as a hallucination, I guess, as a sentient, Warm-Bodies-style zombie with the motor function of a normal human being, cracking lame jokes that the entertainment industry still thinks are funny (like saying “That was intense†after a bus crash).
Next major problem: both of the main characters are extremely boring. Given, there are certain elements about the antagonist that are interesting, but they’re completely wasted on characters that warrant no encouragement from the audience whatsoever. I couldn’t have cared less about what happened to them. Neither Tom Cruise nor Annabelle Wallis had any likeability, and I had no reason to root for them - and when the climax comes, Tom Cruise’s actions have no weight because of it. I probably would have preferred that Sofia Boutella’s mummy had succeeded in conquering the world. Would have made for a much more interesting movie.
Also: Russell Crowe? WTF? Who… why? What? Why? What did he contribute to the story? His role seemed so random and oddly placed. His performance is obnoxious as well. I don’t know. This just infuriated me.
Another major problem: the pacing. Things either don’t happen at all or happen all at once, which makes for a very jarring experience. It’s like a roller coaster, but the bad kind that isn’t fun at all and jerks you back and forth and gives you a headache.
I. Hated. This. Movie.
This movie is a huge middle finger to anyone that likes movies. It is not good. It is not even a movie. It feels like an exercise in caution that I would watch in screenwriting class on how not to make a movie.
Please don’t do this to us anymore, Hollywood. You have so much going for you.
Rating: 2/10
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