Critical Movie Review: The Mummy (2017)
So a bunch of my friends and I went to watch the latest fantasy flick starring Tom Cruise, and to say that I am thoroughly disappointed would be an understatement perhaps.
At this point let me warn you that there will be spoilers ahead, so if you are planning on watching the movie, please refrain from reading any further.
So the movie begins with the story of an Egyptian Princess named Ahamanet, who is the crown Princess and the only heir to the throne of Egypt. She is portrayed in those few flickering moments as the perfect heir to the throne, ruthless, ambitious, regal and exuding Egyptian attractiveness. But then her father has a son out of the blues, and she turns evil, killing her father and his wife and their child. She then goes on to try to bring forth Seth, the “evil” Egyptian God of “Death” into the physical world. However, they are stopped amidst the ritual and her consort is slain whereas she is mummified alive for her “sins”.
Okay, so let’s take a step back and analyse that a bit shall we? First of all, Egyptian laws were, very, very different from the laws of the later Abrahamic religions of the Middle East. Women in ancient Egypt enjoyed an almost equal position to men and had rights to maintain and even inherit assets. They were hardly ever hidden behind veils, although, the overly sensual Western depictions of the Egyptian women may have little to do with the real Egyptian queens, and more with their fascinations of Cleopatra, who belonged to the Ptolemaic dynasty, which was as Egyptian as the European settlers were Americans. If Egypt’s laws of accession were as biased towards male heirs as depicted in the movie, I doubt if we would have ever had such illustrious queens as Nefertari, Nefertiti, or Hatshepsut.
If the honourable director, producer, or scriptwriters had spared even a thought about history, the most likely way in which the story would have played out would have been through an incestuous marriage between the Princess and the Pharaoh’s young son but the Princess would have retained her power nonetheless, given that incestuous marriages were commonplace in the ancient Egyptian royalty.
You could argue that there would have been no story or plot sexy enough for the big screen in that case, and I would certainly agree and continue with this view later. However, I must take a moment to describe my absolute disgust at a certain occidental way of viewing and judging every society and culture through the same set of stained glasses. Why is it so difficult to accept the fact that ancient Egypt had a far more advanced society than Dark Age Europe? And why can’t some scriptwriters and directors just do a bit of homework before they embark on their ambitious Egyptian safaris? Seth, for instance is the God of the Desert, War and Chaos in ancient Egypt, but certainly not of Death. Even a bland Google search would have revealed that the Goddess of Death is Anubis in the ancient Egyptian pantheon of Gods. In my humble opinion, if someone is not respectful of the subject of their own creations, the creations are certainly not worth spending a penny on, as is highly evident in this case.
But since all respects to the true Egyptian culture and history were thrown in the air, let’s continue with that alternative view of having a sexy storyline, shall we?
Even when a story fails to capture the realism, it could still turn out to be gripping in terms of intellectual or human aspects.
So in this movie, the Egyptian Queen was portrayed as the “most ancient and terrible of all evils”. But if one must judge a person, especially a Queen, one must at least ask why? What makes her so “Evil”? The fact that she was trying to protect a position that was rightfully hers? Given, patricide is definitely a crime in most human societies, but for once, I am sure even the feminists would support me, when I say, that as the first born and the eldest child of the Pharaoh, the Egyptian Princess had every right to the throne and the Pharaoh (as per the dumb story) was evil himself to have even thought of betraying her and rightfully deserved to be killed. And if brutal power struggles were such high “sins”, shouldn’t more English lady monarchs have been mummified alive as well?
The movie dragged through several more gaping plot-holes such as - Since when did the Templars become mummified Egyptian slaves? And how is it that a God Queen who is powerful enough to literally turn concrete buildings to dust (or “Egyptian Sand”) and see (or feel) the soul stone of Seth being discovered while still being in chains, never saw the folks coming to chain her up in the first place?
Finally it ended with the almost inevitable conclusion of all stories written by authors incompetent to veil the end, - Tom Cruise kills the Princess. Yay! But, from a purely animalistic perspective, why would any mortal forsake the lure of a far more sensuous Egyptian God Queen for a rather unattractive hypocrite of a wench named Jenny who lied herself and pretended as if you were the thief (how easy was it to forget that hard slap and baseless allegations about your manhood in the beginning)?
To conclude perhaps one of the longest blog posts I have ever written, I would say this movie has absolutely devastated my faith in the Hollywood movie industry, being an absolute all round failure from every possible angle. I would certainly hope that this is not the beginning of a slow and painful descent into the abyss of the void for The Hollywood Movies.
