Universal is bound and determined to create a cinematic universe based around monsters. This was supposed to start a few years ago with Dracula: Untold. It didn't go so well. I never thought Dracula was a bad movie, but we live in a world where money talks. If you don't make enough, your story will not continue on the big screen. Fast forward a few years and they try again. This time with a fresh take on The Mummy. In this one, there is no Brendan Fraser insight. We get Tom Cruise and that should be considered a trade up.
Our movie begins in Iraq, where all Egyptian horror tales get there start. OK not really, but there is a reason for it and it makes sense in the contents of the story. Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and his partner (Jake Johnson) are charged with a long range recon mission, but they are greedy. Cruise comes into a possession of a map that leads to treasure. They come under attack and the battle leads to an ancient tomb being unearthed. Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) shows up to reclaim her stolen map from cruise and explores the tomb. It is determined to be the tomb of ancient Egyptian princess named Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella). A long with her comes a curse and her promise to destroy the world. Morton and Halsey set out to stop the princess and free himself from her curse. They are aided by a secret organization, led by Dr. Henry Jeckel (Russel Crowe), charged with policing the worlds monsters.
It is a fresh take on the story. Ahmanet is a different type of mummy and unfortunately gets lost in the story. She does a great job of being scary. She has a cool back story and a much improved look. There are similarities in the powers that we have seen before, but the curse is very much new. The potential for her to be terrifying is there, but it never fully comes to be.
Russel Crowe's Dr. Jeckel / Mr Hyde plays well, but we don't get enough of him. We never learn if he is on the side of good or bad. The organization is pretty cool. We get lots of nods to a bigger world, but again it is not fully fleshed out. There some great moments, but we just don't get enough depth with them.
The actions scenes are what you would expect from Cruise. The plane scene from the trailer is well done and so are most of the fight scenes. It is not Cruise's fault, but we just don't get enough character development to determine how we feel about him. The best part of the character arc comes at the end of the film and again sets up future movies.
Every universe has a starting point. The Mummy happens to be the beginning of this one. It doesn't mean this is a bad movie, but it also isn't enough of a movie. It feel very small for all of the big effects. The story is just OK. It is a fresh attempt and a good start, but it just spends too much time setting up the future. The characters suffer a bit and the story sometimes gets lost. It isn't quite where I wanted it to be, but it is better than I expected.
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