The Mummy Review

The Mummy is to be the first entry in The Dark Universe which is Universal's shared monster universe. They've tried to get it going for quite some time and really went all in with this one. Following Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) as the lead, he stumbles upon an ancient Egyptian tomb in a bizarre place. What's unleashed from this tomb is something that no one could expect as an ancient evil is released. Nick gets a curse and then the crew gets thrown out into London.

From there the story stumbles along not particularly having an exact point and coming across as mostly confusing. I'm not sure if the bid to build the universe up was overwhelming or if the story just didn't come together well. It also didn't contain very much exciting action and the horror was average. It was rather odd that no jump scares landed with only small portions of this movie coming across as scary. It also seemed that the actors weren't entirely into it with Tom Cruise lacking his usual hype attitude and his pal Nick (Jake Johnson) felt out of place.

The opposing Mummy (Sofia Boutella) was decent, but was given a role that didn't give her much to do. The look of the film was good providing a dark atmosphere and I liked how intense it was able to go. The monsters looked great with a couple of them showing up yet I'm still not sure what the scale of this shared universe will be. I felt the idea of the film was interesting with taking this group of monsters into the modern time, but this was a below average start to it.

There wasn't an exact focus on what type of movie this was to be as the comedic aspects didn't work, it wasn't all that scary and the action could have used more energy. There was a sequence on a plane that was thrilling and the movie started out alright, yet I was left puzzled by the end. Since I saw it in 3D I'll mention that the extra depth added some good effects when used and did improve the viewing.

The Conclusion

The Mummy was a disappointing first step in The Dark Universe and despite that I still want to see where this could possibly head. I'm not sure what they'll do next as this didn't really tie into anything else being a standalone starting point. The characters have potential with some impressive visuals, but the actors didn't seem into it.

The only one that was performing well, Sofia Boutella didn't get a chance to shine. By the end of the movie I was confused what just had happened in The Mummy and that's about all I can say for what this was.

The Mummy Review at Theater with 3D Viewing
Screening Provided by NBC Universal

Rating Overall: 4.5