The Mummy Review
BUCKLE THE HELL UP BECAUSE THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF UNIVERSAL’S DARK UNIVERSE. That is essentially what the studio was shoving down our throats upon announcing this Mummy movie. They looked around the film landscape and saw a hole in the market, I just know it. They thought since no one else is doing franchise movies or reboots of old properties they would seize on that opportunity to really market to those die hard fans of the original monster movies.
Universal, I want to let you know that Marvel, DC, and James Wan are all doing that already with the Marvel, DC, and Conjuring movies. Also, The Mummy from 1999 along with The Mummy Returns and Scorpion King, ALONG with the original Mummy and all the old monster movies are some of my favorite movies of all time. They hold up very well under the test of time so I don’t understand why they needed to remake. Universal makes franchises and reboots all the time that bomb so why would the subject the monsters of my childhood to the same fate as is clearly happening? I’ll tell you why. Because as it is bombing here in the US, it is soaring overseas because those over seas have not been subjected to as many terrible movies as we have. I am going to get this out of the way right now, I actually didn’t hate this movie. I went into it thinking I would hate it and there were a lot of things that I liked in it but the fog of franchise still was over me so here are some gripes.
The movie has about 5 minutes of screen time in Egypt. This mummy was such a bad girl that when they mummified her alive they then traveled to Mesopotamia aka Iraq to bury here in a very very intricate prison under the ground that was filled with Mercury and ropes and devices. First off...how and why did they spend that much time and energy burying her? Maybe because this movie will play in those markets and not in Egypt? Also, the entire rest of the movie takes place in London so unlike the prior Mummy movies which didn’t care about international box office, this movie so obviously does.
With that said, my absolute favorite monster movie is Creature from the Black Lagoon, so if this movie is a box office hit overseas and makes Universal make the next few in this *gag* franchise, I am ok with it because I do want to see them make a Creature from the Black Lagoon movie. Now if that movie isn’t good either I will be pissed but these monster movies have such a potential to be amazing. What was so great about the original monster movies was they were cramped and scary. The set pieces were small and everything was natural aka no CGI. That made them scary. If they do that with the next few, they could turn this ship around, but if Mummy is any indication, this movie will be forgotten and buried in an undisclosed location in Mesopotamia.
If you are looking for a summer popcorn movie, check this one out just make sure you go matinee. If you loved the Universal monster movies, go see this film with trepidation, but try and enjoy it because there are more coming.