'Mummy' reboot goes for laughs and action over horror
Forget the atmospheric horror of Universal Pictures' 1932 original “The Mummy” starring the skeletal Boris Karloff.
Alex Kurtzman's “Dark Universe” series reboot of the earlier Brendan Fraser reboot is first a chuckleheaded comedy, then an action film, then a creature feature, a zombie tale, and, finally, a superhero origin tale of sorts.
It's funny, but not very. Thrilling, but not very. Scary, but not very. Romantic, not at all.
Tom Cruise and Jake Johnson play Nick and Chris, looters of antiquities who apparently serve in the U.S. Army, yet remain unattached to any unit.
They find an Egyptian tomb in Iraq (there's a reason) where they resurrect the mummy of Ahmanet (Algerian actress Sofia Boutella), who killed her family to clear her way to evil power.
Nick turns out to be “the chosen,” the male vessel Ahmanet intends to skewer with a mystical knife that will allow an ancient god to take human form.
Chris becomes transformed into a comical walking corpse (anybody remember dead Griffin Dunne in “American Werewolf in London”?) who materializes in restrooms to counsel Nick and bring us up to speed on the exposition.
Meanwhile, a smart and highly athletic ancient Egypt expert named Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) helps Nick, but for her own reasons.
She works for a secret, global society of evil thwarters led, improbably, by the movie's voice-over narrator, Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe).
Yes. That Dr. Jekyll.
If you put “Ghostbusters” in a cinematic blender with “Mission: Impossible,” you would probably create something that Kurtzman intended to make with “The Mummy.”
That might be because “Mission: Impossible” writer David Koepp wrote this screenplay along with Christopher McQuarrie, writer and director of other “Mission: Impossible” thrillers.
“The Mummy” races from one spectacular action scene to the next, keeping the eyes and ears under constant attack, with Nick being tossed, crushed and squeezed on exquisitely designed sets, then inexplicably surviving, scratchless, as if possessed of Spider-Man's fortitude.
This “Mummy” teems with promising ideas that never fully materialize.
Ahmanet possesses power over the climate and animals, but only employs it to whip up a timely sandstorm, or summon forth blackbirds, rats and bugs when the movie needs to bump up its “ick” factor.
Like Karloff's “Mummy,” Kurtzman's tale pivots on the idea of powerful, sacrificial love. Yet, no romantic sparks of passion can be found among these characters, too busy battling CGI phantoms to approximate a modicum of sincere emotions.
“The Mummy” gets one thing right: a series of jump-scares so well-timed that you never see them coming.
Unlike the plot twists.
“The Mummy”
★ ★ ½
Starring: Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Russell Crowe, Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson
Directed by: Alex Kurtzman
Other: A Universal Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for nudity, sexual situations, violence. 120 minutes