The Mummy (2017)
DIRECTOR: Alex Kurtzman CAST: Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis
This weekend, Universal Pictures is finally doing right by its slate of movie monsters with a little help from Blumhouse Productions for its acclaimed remake of THE INVISIBLE MAN, and Awfully Good Movies is taking you back a mere three years ago to remind you about Universal's previous (and worst) attempt at raising the Universal Monsters back from the dead with Tom Cruise starring in Alex Kurtzman's remake of THE MUMMY! With DRACULA UNTOLD failing to incur any interest in the idea of a shared monster universe, Universal decided to fully commit to its plans for a "Dark Universe" by going all out with a brand new take on Boris Karloff's bandaged baddie. And much like Stephen Sommers' blockbuster MUMMY remake that became a franchise of its own, the 2017 MUMMY would spice things up with some fist-swinging action in between all the scares, with Tom Cruise playing an army soldier and part-time thief who accidentally unleashes the supernatural evil of an ancient Egyptian princess who'd been entombed for dealing with the devil. Yes, you heard us right: this time, our mummy is all woman–namely the woman who kicked Taron Egerton's ass with her knife legs in KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE, Sofia Boutella. Plus to tie the installments of this franchise together, we've got Russell Crowe adding some class as the Dark Universe's equivalent to Nick Fury, Dr. Henry Jekyll, who keeps his evil alter ego in check while running a secret organization tasked with rounding up the various Universal Monsters and stopping them from destroying the world. And yet with all of this talent, the new MUMMY was little more than a grab-bag of action movie cliches and obvious CGI that pathetically tried ripping off the Marvel movie formula, along with numerous plot elements from far better movies: AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, Tobe Hooper's LIFEFORCE, and even Tom Cruise's own EDGE OF TOMORROW. So by failing to commit to the atmospheric horror of the 1932 MUMMY or the adventurous action of the 1999 MUMMY, the 2017 MUMMY left audiences with the worst of the both worlds and immediately killed off future plans for Javier Bardem as Frankenstein's monster and Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man. But hey, now that the Depp-less INVISIBLE MAN remake has finally done right by the Universal Monsters, then perhaps there's some hope left for this "Monster-verse" after all. May I suggest Universal gets to greenlighting MADEA MEETS THE MUMMY?
If you want to have yourself a real "Monster Mash", then party on down with the frightfully terrible films of Awfully Good Movies past…
BIG MOMMAS: LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON