![]() You mean like what Marvel and Warner Bros. However, the most interesting (or, depending on your opinion on the state of cinema, frustrating) aspect of the movie is that it’s meant to kick off a massive cinematic universe for the Universal Monsters. Universal is ready to take on Disney and Warner Bros. It’s supposed to be an action-adventure movie with horror elements, but that’s all we really know about the plot at this point. It doesn’t in any fashion involve Brendan Fraser, but instead stars Tom Cruise as a military leader trying to stop the titular Mummy ( Star Trek Beyond’s Sofia Boutella) from destroying London. ![]() The Mummy is a new take on the classic Universal Studios The Mummy franchise. “Welcome,” says Russell Crowe, “to a new world of gods and monsters.” But how does the studio plan to adapt eight-year-old properties to compete with Iron Man and the Skywalker family? Universal is serious about this franchise push, going so far as to lay groundwork in the very first trailer. The lurching bandaged corpse of the past has been replaced with Tom Cruise, an ancient female mummy bent on global destruction, and an extravagant special effects budget. ![]() Last night, we got a look at Universal’s effort: a reboot of the classic Universal Monsters films, beginning with The Mummy. It’s a ragbag of action scenes which needed to be bandaged more tightly.In the age of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, every studio wants a behemoth self-referential franchise to call its own. Yet the film really won’t make up its mind. In the end, having encouraged us to cheer for Tom Cruise as an all-around hero, the film tries to have it both ways and confer upon him some of the sepulchral glamour of evil, and he almost has something Lestat-ish or vampiric about him. He is a figure to be mistrusted, although when he reveals his name and his destiny, he is just a distraction – and silly. Unlike Nick, he has no Indiana Jones-type heroism, and that formal attire of his signals that he does not have Nick’s kind of heroic looseness. Russell Crowe lumbers on at one stage, amply filling a three-piece suit, playing an archaeological expert and connoisseur of secret burial sites, who has some sinister connection with government agencies. Nick’s plane crashes, giving him the opportunity for some Mission: Impossible-type midair acrobatics, those gorgeous chops pulling some serious Gs. Her creepy spirit accompanies him back home where she is intent on getting that precious jewel to unlock her full power. Then they blunder across the extraordinary tomb of evil Egyptian sorceress Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) who has some kind of weirdo mind-meld experience with Nick. He’s helped by his exasperated buddy Chris (Jake Johnson), while Nick has already seduced beautiful expert Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) who in spite of herself is entranced by Nick’s distinctive cherubic handsomeness. Photograph: Allstar/Universal PicturesĬruise plays Nick Morton, an adorable rascal in the Iraqi warzone who goes around in a TE Lawrence headdress stealing antiquities to sell well, it’s that or let them be destroyed. Midair acrobatics … Tom Cruise and Annabelle Wallis in The Mummy. The flabby, shapeless film itself doesn’t have his muscle-tone. ![]() In one scene, he is nude so we can see what undeniably great shape he’s in. The Cruisemeister himself is left high and dry by plot lurches that trigger his boggle-eyed, WTF expression. ![]() Perhaps it’s because they are evil and had to be taken out of the country, like CIA rendition of terror suspects.) (The London one, on the site of the Crossrail excavation, contains the remains of medieval knights identified as “crusaders” who have in their dead Brit mitts various strategically important jewels they have taken from Egyptians: who were subsequently buried in what is now Iraq. There are two separate ancient “tomb-sites” which have to be busted open: one in London and one in Iraq. The plot sags like an aeon-old decaying limb: a jumble of ideas and scenes from what look like different screenplay drafts. This has some nice moments but is basically a mess, with various borrowings, including some mummified bits from An American Werewolf in London. The Mummy trailer: watch Tom Cruise die in monster reboot – video Guardian ![]()
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