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Monday, 17 July 2017

The Mummy (2017) - Did they have to? (Review with spoilers) Title: The Mummy
Tom Cruise ... Nick Morton
Russell Crowe ... Henry
Annabelle Wallis ... Jenny Halsey
Sofia Boutella ... Ahmanet
Jake Johnson ... Chris Vail
Summary (from IMDB):
An ancient princess is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia, and terrors that defy human comprehension.

I will start by saying only one cinema near us is still showing this and now I know why!

Firstly, the good things. The effects are superb and the stunts are really well done. There are exciting sequences in the movie and parts will get your heart pumping. I love the look of Ahmanet and the double eyes are fantastic. If only the plot had held up to the effects.

My favourite character in the whole film is Vail (Jake Johnson). He's basically the reimaginining of Jonathan from the original 1999 masterpiece and he's a lot of fun to watch. His timeline actually makes sense and his story conclusion is the only really good thing about the whole sequence of the film.

Sofia Boutella does wonders with what she is given as Ahmanet, but her character is so badly written that it just doesn't make sense. She a pretty good baddy, but since this movie should have been called Cruise, not The Mummy, she doesn't have a who lot to work with. Her physical acting is superb, if only the film had actually been about her.

There ends the good.

This film is basically an attempt to start a new franchise about monster hunters, only in doing that it fails to do the Mummy any justice whatsoever. The rest of this review is going to have spoilers gallor, so be warned.

The first thing that really annoys me is the lack of any indepth Egyptology. The 1999 movie might have been a little dodgy, but they tried to stay true to the genre. Frankly in this version she wasn't really a Mummy, didn't need to be Egyptian and they just used whatever bits of Egyptian history they felt like, most of which made no sense.

Let's start with Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) herself. She is the sole heir to the Pharoh and is being brought up to rule, but Daddy falls for a new wife who gives him a son. Was she just the eldest of a whole host of girls? Was is just because she was the daughter of the Great Royal Wife? How come it took him so long to have another wife? How is she the sole heir? I need more explanation. Women could rule in Egypt, but Pharohs took having heirs very seriously, so where are the others?

Then their is her whole plot. She sees the new wife and new son as her downfall because the baby will inheret. She wants the ultimate power so she makes a deal with Set to become a monster. She kills her father and her brother and her brother's mother. Yay, ultimate power. Oh, but wait, part of the deal was to bring Set into the human world and give him a body ... Hang on, so she's going to give away ultimate power to a man. Didn't she just kill everyone for that?

Makes no sense!

Then they mummify her alive for her crimes before she can bring Set to this world and erase her from history - only they helpfully still put her name and her whole story on her sarcophagus? Seriously?!!!

Oh, and if you didn't want anyone to bring up the sarcophagus, Ancient Egyptians, why did you leave all the machinary in place to make it easy? Oh, and why no boobytraps? Could it be possibly because the writers don't give two stuffs about the Egyptian tomb part and it's all a quick way to get the Mummy out of Iraq?

I also have a question to anyone who may know - did the ancient Egyptians really believe mercury would contain monsters? All I can find when searching is that they used it in cosmetics. The whole power over evil thing is not something I had heard before, but not being an expert I don't know if one of the writers actually did some research, or just made that shit up :).

So, on to our hero.

You know how in the original 1999 movie Rick is a bit of a rogue, but a loveable one? Well Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) is just an asshole. I disliked him from the moment he first appeared and nothing in the film ever redeemed him to the point where I actually liked him. He made me want to throw things at the screen. I was really hoping for something good because I've enjoyed some Cruise movies recently (Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow, the last 3 MI movies), but this is right up there with all those I have really disliked (first MI movie, War of the Worlds).

His story arc is so predicatable it's painful and when he actually becomes Set and end up possibly "the best hope" of the monster hunters, but of course only if he hangs on to his inherent goodness and does not give in to the evil, I was so not shocked. This film was not about Ahmanet or anyone else, it was all about making Nick a god so he can be the ultimate hero in the rest of the franchise. It's an ego trip.

We do have another female character in Jenny (Annabelle Wallis). Her first conversation in the film revolves around having had sex with Nick. I'll just let you guess what her character's all about for the rest of the movie.

The two female characters in the movie have one conversation together - just one. It starts off hopefully with Jenny speaking Egyptian to Ahmanet and asking about the old gods, of course it ends up about Ahmanet's chosen (Nick). So, yes, this movie fails the lowest bar possible for female agency in a movie the Bechdel Test.

They also Fridge Jenny to further Nick's plot - specifically to make him a god.

Then there is the whole Dr Henry Jekyll (Russell Crow) part. I believe my reaction was something along the lines of 'you have to be f***ing kidding'. They seemed to be trying to create a film that was of a cross between The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and The Mummy 1999 and it fell short of both. Given that I have never been overly impressed with tLoEG, that's not a high bar to try and improve on and they failed. I doubt they ever could have managed to match The Mummy 1999 though.

This film:
I sincerely hope they never, ever make a second one.
Posted by Natasha Duncan-Drake at 12:02 Labels: *Reviews, *Reviews: Film, The Mummy (2017)

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