The Mummy Review

So there's a new film universe out there now called Dark Universe and it's going to be (no matter how hard you try to make it not happen) all of Universal's monster franchises rolled up into one. This Dark Universe is starting off with The Mummy starring Tom Cruise as the main character. Spoilers may follow! Now the last version of The Mummy, starring Brendon Fraser, isn't exactly the perfect film series ever. In fact, I would say that as serious films they aren't great but as fun action adventure films they are really quite entertaining. This is why Tom Cruise is the most important person in the middle of the set-up of this whole Dark Universe.

The Mummy follows Tom Cruise's Nick Morton whose part of the US Army with his friend Chris, Jake Johnson, together they find treasure in the Middle East and sell it on the black market for money. This time, however, they discovered a locked away Ancient Egyptian Princess Ahmanet who is awoken and is trying to bring forth the God of Death Sette by using Nick as a vessel. The story is a simple one where Ahmanet needs her dagger and the stone on top of it to bring Set into this world by stabbing Nick, her chosen one, because he saved her with it. The Mummy is more action- adventure than, say, the mixture of Indiana Jones and Interstellar.

Tom Cruise brings to this film what he does to all of his films, mainly of recent years, and that is the sense of action and adventure. Why you would go into a film like The Mummy expecting some crazy awesome story, like most film critics feel like they needed out of The Mummy, is beyond me. This film is clearly meant to be not a film, but in fact, a movie filled with action and adventure whilst at the same time slightly setting up this new Dark Universe and that's exactly what the film does. It's not trying to be some high-concept piece of art that's going to revolutionise blockbuster movies but instead be a movie that you'll want to watch on a boring Friday night. If you go into the movie with the same child-like wonder and sense of adventure that you would've had watching The Mummy,Indiana Jones and so on then this movie will be fun for you. It's almost unfair to treat it otherwise because really it's called The Mummy for god's sake it's not even a name that screams "oh yeah I'm going to get a good story out of this." This version of The Mummy has a story that works for what it's trying to do.

The action pieces in the movie are quite good, that's why you hire Tom Cruise, and you can see the amount of effort that the cast puts into it. Every action moment, from running through a small town exploding via gunfire and bombs to the zero gravity scene on the plane, are all fun. They are, however, fun moments stuck in between moments of set up and explanation. If the movie needed to do something less, it was constantly explaining the world it was set in. The constant explanation is like constantly stopping at traffic lights when you're having a good drive. The action stops too frequently because of the set up of this Dark Universe, but I'm sure that once it's all set up that explanation won't be as bad as you'll see the points where it all started.

One very interesting thing I'd like to point out is that really the film could've been done without Tom Cruise's character Nick. Usually, you can take out a lot of other characters in blockbuster movies and just leave the main character, the villain and one or two people to help connect everything together. In The Mummy, however, Nick is simply a guy who finds the tomb and then is cursed and because of that, he is the main character. If they wanted a little bit less of a story they could've simply taken Tom Cruise out of the movie and put either Jake Johnson's Chris or Annabelle Wallis' Jenny as the main character. Tom Cruise really pulls his weight and does an impressive job of staying relevant in a movie that easily could've not had him in it. His character is simple man up to no good who must learn that he is also a good guy. It's because of the adrenaline and kid-like spirit that Tom Cruise has that this movie is good to watch.

Is this Tom Cruise's worst movie ever? (an actual article title I read today I mean seriously eat a Snickers and stop hating) No way, I mean have you seen Mission Impossible 2? Even my girlfriend, who isn't exactly the biggest Tom Cruise fan, thought that giving The Mummy the title of 'Tom Cruise's Worst Movie Ever' was quite unfair. If you want an example of a bad blockbuster than watch the new Pirates of the Caribbean film and then watch The Mummy afterwards and tell me which is better. It's a shock that with so many blockbusters and more serious pieces of cinema out there that people can't sort it all into what is supposed to be fun and what's supposed to be serious. It's called The Mummy! and as a movie its fun, exciting and funny at times. It isn't perfect and it isn't even one of the best blockbusters but I don't believe it deserves the title it's being given. Go see the movie expecting a fun time and that's what you'll receive.

Score: 3.5/5