The Mummy

The ride will be great. Like many times I see the Universal logo spinning into view with the blaring thuds of trumpet sounds, I realize that the chances of this action film being bad are up there. One large piece of…computer generated plastic, wrapped around a hot turd of a story. Sorry but I had to get scatalogical. Frankly, I was disappointed because I was really rooting for Sofia Boutella, who had a fine turn on Star Trek Beyond. But I should know better regarding expectations and movies. Tom Cruise could carry this film. It is Tom Cruise after all. But he doesn’t. D leaned over and said “Wooden” during one of the excruciatingly painful expositional dialogue scenes. And I know he wasn’t referring to the Pyramid of Success. What was even worse were the attempt at shocked or horrified looks from the actors. Honestly, if some demonic mummy comes out of a sarcophagus and starts sucking peoples brains out are you just gonna sit there — or even run? Let’s face it, you are gonna lose bowel control (again with the scatology) and roll up into the most fetal of fetal positions. But let’s say you are not, let’s say you trained on Amazon Warrior Island with Wonder Woman for the past 20 years. Are you really going to get all Kung Fu on a bunch of dead crusaders? Yes, I said crusaders. This film goes everywhere from the Medieval crusades to the Resident Evil video game. It would be forgivable, as the mashup in Wonder Woman is, were it not that the film tries so hard for there to be some type of romantic relationship between Cruise and Jenny, played perfunctorily by Annabelle Wallis. His concern for her defies any possible suspension of disbelief. And how about Russell Crowe as Henry Jekyll? Yes that Jekyll. This addition is straight out of left field story-wise. Though Crowe does give an admirable, impassioned performance as the bipolar madman.

The one thing to recommend here are the special effects. They went to town on that. And also the make-up on the mummy, which I felt was strong. Set design also left nothing to be desired. It is a well crafted film. This film also did register on the D “Jumped In My Seat” Richter scale at least once. And there were moments of high suspense where I couldn’t look because I was too freaked out. I’m sure at the Universal theme park, the ride will be great.