The Mummy

Well from the trailer itself the plot of the new Tom Cruise film The Mummy was very clear. In fact every Mummy related movie had this same storyline of an evil soul coming back to life when some white people goes there and irritates it. And ultimately that Mummy is creating a whole lot of mess and our hero and gang are trying to control it. The same idea repeats here and the only possible new factor here is Tom Cruise who will somehow do a set piece which looks breathtaking.

The plot here has a fortune hunter Nick Morton and partner finding the tomb of princess Ahmanet. She was buried alive in the Mummy form because of her selfish sins that includes murder. She had an unfinished business which she needs to fulfill and she decides to use Nick for that and the movie deals around her attempt to get hold of Nick and Nick’s attempt to get away from her.

Hollywood movies are no longer judged for their enormous production values. With a star like Tom Cruise in the lead role, budget isn’t a focus point here. It was about how different would be the take of Alex Kurtzman on the already worn out Mummy franchise. Apart from the technological advancement in the technical side like visual effects and other production design oriented stuff, The Mummy doesn’t have a compelling idea to keep us engrossed to the screens in eager. The cliché horror treatment along with those visualizations can scare you a bit for sure. But at the end the film doesn’t stay in your mind for anything that is creatively admirable.

Tom Cruise sort of repeats his panicked performance which we have seen in films like Edge of Tomorrow. The character isn’t written that perfectly. Towards the end Annabelle Wallis’s character Jenny is sort of praising him saying he is a good man at heart and we as an audience won’t really feel anything great about this character as there wasn’t much in the film which proved that. Annabelle Wallis gets a character that doesn’t have much of acting and for both TC and Annabelle the effort is more physical. Russell Crowe comes in the movie as Henry Jekyll whom we will see again if they decide to go on with the franchise. Sofia Boutella appears as Ahmanet.

Alex Kurtzman hasn’t compromised on scale. But he can’t add freshness to the way the story is presented. It is not at all difficult to predict the way the film will move forward and you can even guess the result of certain dramas in the plot. Big names like David Koepp and Christopher McQurrie are associated with the writing of this film, but there isn’t much here in terms of writing that absorbs you. At some areas I got confused about how powerful was the Mummy. The twists and suspense are old school clichés. The only thing that looks good are the visual effects aided large scale set pieces.

The Mummy is the reboot of the famous Mummy franchise and looking at the way the film ends we will most probably see sequels in the future. I hope it will have some exciting and refreshing writing to add some life to the overall dead look of this franchise.

Rating: 2/5