Movie Reviews-The Mummy (2017)

Hello and Welcome to Movie Reviews where today we'll be looking at the apparent start of Universal's Dark Universe with The Mummy (2017)



Director Alex Kurtzman gives us the story of Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) a solder of fortune that loots ancient tombs in Iraq and Afghanistan before religious zealots destroy them. He, along with his buddy, Chris Vale (Jake Johnson) raid a zealot controlled village and soon uncover a mysterious tomb. After getting the army to come and investigate it, along with the mysterious, feisty archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis). The three of them head into the tomb, eager to document the discover and maybe get some loot to sell later on. However, when Nick accidentally releases an ancient evil. The evil spirit of Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) rises and seeks to use Nick as a vessel for the evil god, Set and take over the world. Now, Nick and Jenny must stop this evil from destroying all of mankind.

The idea of Universal taking advantage of the cinematic universe craze that's going on right now and making one that has the universal monsters is an interesting and kinda cool idea. You might not have thought about this but those old universal black and white monster movies was the very first cinematic universe if you think about it. The idea of remaking that in the modern age, upping the production value, putting some fresh ideas into the series to make this cinematic universe is a really good idea. You could take this in so many creative and different ways. Remaking the horror aspect, or maybe creating an interesting world where monsters are coming to be known in the public and are seen as a menace. This is a really cool idea that Universal Studios has on their hands..........too bad that it's first outing is the safest, most vanilla thing you will ever see.

So okay, what exactly do I mean by "safe"? Isn't safe a good thing? Not here. The term "Committee Movie" has been thrown out a lot in the past to describe things like the MCU and the SWU. While, yes there are times where in those series, you can see the corporate control behind it all, for the most part the directors and film makers are so good that you don't see past it. Film is an illusion after all. There are groups of board members behind each of those films that probably do decide what some aspects of said film will be, if the film is good enough though, then it can work around and even work with the limitations provided. "Art from Adversity" and all that. A film like this though? Watching it, looking back at it in retrospect, everything about this film, from the casting of the lead, to it's bland direction, to the editing, to the villain, all of it screams committee. This film is not a product of a creative spark, this film is a product of corporate committee's that sought to maximize as much profit as they could from a product. No one went into this film with the idea of creating a story. This film was created only so that it could make money.

When I call this film "Safe" and a "Committee Movie", I mean it as literally as possible. You can feel the soulless, corporate mindset crafting this. Board Member 1: We need to cast someone that's a big draw, someone that the masses will recognize and will go to see. Board Member 2: What about Tom Cruise? People like him AND he's recognizable overseas so we can tap into that foreign market. Board Member 1: Excellent Idea, we'll see if he's available. Board Member 3: I think we should probably get a director that won't get in the way, won't try to give the film some type of strange vision that might scare off potential customers. Board Member 4: Good point, we should look for the average director for hire. Someone that's just willing to collect a paycheck. Do you all see what I mean? Nothing about this film says "Art". All of it was made by people that had no interest in telling a story and just sought to profit off of what's popular at the time, creating their own "Universe". From my knowledge, Iron Man was not created for the soul purpose of creating a universe. They just wanted to tell a good story first and if it was a success THEN go further from there. Man of Steel while having many problems, you can at least look at that and say that Zack Snyder made that with a vision. It was a misguided vision yes, but it was a vision. There is no vision with this director, it honestly felt lie he was just plucked off the street.

Because of everything that I just described, this film came off as generic and boring when I saw it. The biggest compliment that I can give is that this is a watchable film. You can see it and not want to just leave. But if you do see it, odds are, you will not remember it a month from now, maybe even a week. This is the prime example of a forgettable movie. The Mummy (2017) gets a D.