Tom Cruise Russell Crowe Annabelle Wallis Sofia Boutella Jake Johnson Courtney B. Vance
The Mummy
is another showcase for Tom Cruise to dominate the action by performing
impossible feats, bare his physique, and rescue a beautiful woman, usually
blonde. Here, the story in the
beginning casts him as Nick Morton, a soldier supposedly on a reconnaissance
mission getting distracted from his duties in the interest of stealing
antiquities and selling them on the black market. Far from being an admirable fellow, he is a thief, having
stolen, in addition to artifacts, an archeological map to reach a Mesopotamian
(now Iraqi) site that holds antiquities he can sell. When he ends up having to be rescued by his commanding
officer, Col. Greenway (Vance), he lies without blinking an eye.
Accompanying Greenway is archeologist Jenny
Halsey (Wallis), who is keenly interested in the site (guess where Nick got the
map), and insists on exploring it after a bomb made a huge pit exposing
valuable artifacts from Egypt (most unusual) in a tomb far from Egypt’s
borders. Greenway sends Nick and
his sidekick Vail (Johnson) down into the pit with her—presumably for
protection—and gives them only a limited amount of time. Nick and Chris are like two boys in a
candy story trying to nick (pun intended) every bauble they can grab. Appropriately, Jenny scolds them, but a
far more threatening force has been unleashed by the violation of the tomb. They have unearthed (thanks to Nick’s
careless use of his gun) a sculpture of a god that was not meant to be
disturbed.
As background, we are told about an ancient
Egyptian ruler named Ahmanet, who made a deal with the god of death, Set, when
her father bore a son who would eventually usurp Ahmanet’s reign. She is punished and mummified for
killing her father and his son, but by disturbing the site in the way he did,
Nick is now cursed. The mummy of
Ahmanet has risen and has decided that he is her “chosen one”, Set, so she tries
to persuade him to join her in death to be a god. He is not very tempted, but she is able to “get into his
head” in a way that propels him to go in directions he does not intend. It is only through sheer will that he
is able to thwart her.
It turns out that Jenny the archeologist works
with a Dr. Jekyll (Crowe) in London, who has grandiose plans of his own. Nick ends up there when Jenny realizes
that he has been cursed, and she wants him to see a doctor. Here, Nick learns that Dr. Jekyll has
actually captured Ahmanet as part of his plan and she is in chains.
Interspersed in all this are mummies turning
into zombies, endless struggles by Nick and Jenny to break free (he’s now
become, magically, a more honorable figure) of the curse, with Ahmanet pursuing
them relentlessly, seeming to have superhuman powers. The film ends with a clear-cut set-up for sequels.
The best part of this film is watching Ahmanet,
who is fascinating to look at, eerie and forceful in her actions, and relishing
her evilness. She is abhorrent and
beautiful in a surrealistic way, and about the only creative force in the
film. Cruise plays his usual role;
Annabelle Wallis is competent in rendering what she is given by the script, and
Jake Johnson plays as well as he can his completely irritating character Vail, who is transformed
into a zombie.
Russell Crowe can certainly play conniving baddies, but the script he is
given here makes his character neither convincing nor understandable because
his “plan” is not well articulated.
Although there was a low-key applause at the
screening I attended, it is doubtful this film will catch the fire that the
studio and filmmakers hope for.
It’s no longer interesting to see unending fights, despite the hope for
CG effects to elevate them.
This is an uninspired attempt to revive
The Mummy franchise.
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