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The Mummy

(2 popcorn boxes)

    I didn’t hate this movie. In fact, I liked the ending…no, not just because it meant this movie was over. The trick is to not compare it to the exceptional 1999 film starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz.

  Nick (Tom Cruise) and his buddy Vail (Jake Johnson) appear to be connected to the military in some undefined way – they are in Iraq – and they seek out treasures that can be sold on the black market. Not precisely good guys, but I won’t judge.
  The treasure they find is, of course, a mummy bent on the destruction of mankind. Of course. The mummy – Ahmenet (Sofia Boutella) – is an Egyptian princess imprisoned in the afterlife for her attempt to free Set, whom the movie refers to as a God of Death. Actually, Set (or Seth) is a god of the desert, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners. In Egyptian mythology, Set is portrayed as the usurper who killed Osiris and reigned over the afterworld as a king among deserving spirits of the dead. Well, that is all extraneous.
  Anyway𠉪hmenet decides she will take Nick as her chosen and he will be inhabited by Set. There is a secret society led by Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe) and a beautiful archeologist named Jenny (Annabelle Wallis) who is somehow involved with Nick and – honestly – it sounds a lot like the 1999 version of The Mummy, but it falls short in so many ways, mostly in making us care about any of the characters. Nobody, literally nobody, is as charming, funny and handsome as Brendan Fraser. That’s all I have to say about that.
 The special effects and CGI are a saving point for The Mummy. Directed by Alex Kurtzman, the film has a great pace of non-stop action, but loses its way in the story as almost everything has no background or is not explained. So, the audience just gets to see Cruise running around the desert and London with secret society soldiers or mummies chasing him. Every time Cruise got into a fight with one of the many mummies Ahmenet resurrected I could hear Brendan Fraser in my head saying “I hate mummies!” Last comparison! I promise!
  Two boxes out of five for The Mummy. The action and effects were really well done and might be enough of a reason to buy a ticket. But the story and character development was so lame that even Tom Cruise couldn’t save it. Personally, I watch the 1999 version of The Mummy every time I run across it on cable’s 157 channels𠉮very time. The Mummy is rated PG-13 for scary images and violence.
  On a side note, I also had the opportunity to see Wonder Woman with the fantastical daughter last week. It was good, probably the best DC Comics movie since the 1989 Batman with Michael Keaton. But as the brilliant daughter mentioned, we need to give it the DC handicap. During the end credits I said to the fantastical daughter, “I am not overwhelmed.” To which she replied, 𠇊re you just whelmed?”  That pretty much sums it up. Wonder Woman is probably the best DC Comic movie I’ve seen. It doesn’t come close to the top ten Marvel Comic offerings. Just saying.
  Check this week’s issue of the Frankenmuth News for a complete listing of shows and times.

MOVIE TRIVIA
  Jake Johnson gave us some much needed, and not quite plentiful enough, comic relief in The Mummy. He is also quite funny in this television series starring Zooey Deschanel.

LAST WEEK’S MOVIE TRIVIA
      I first noticed the adorable freckles of Kaya Scodelario in this British television series (2007-2013) which also brought us Nicholas Hoult. Skins.