STARRING TOM CRUISE, RUSSELL CROWE, SOFIA BOUTELLA, ANNABELLE WALLIS AND JAKE JOHNSON.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
I only watched this movie on Friday night, this being Sunday afternoon, but I can barely remember any of it, it was so bad, so flat and so one-dimensional. I love Tom Cruise, and would marry him and have his babies in a heartbeat if he asked me to, but this action-adventure-fantasy film is so bad it’s even worse than THE MUMMY: THE TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR (2008), and that movie sucked so hard. Sucked and blew.
It- the 2017 movie- belongs to the same THE MUMMY franchise that contains the two superb MUMMY films by Stephen Sommers (THE MUMMY- 1999 and THE MUMMY RETURNS- 2001), but it completely lacks their warmth, richness of colour- all gorgeous reds and golds- fabulous spectacle and characters both lovable, like Brendan Fraser’s adventurer, Rick O’Connell, and sneeringly sexy, like Arnold Vosloo’s handsome but evil Mummy and Patricia Velasquez as the poisonous Anck-Su-Namun.
And who could forget Patricia V. and the luminous Rachel Weisz cat-fighting with each other in the skimpy garb of Ancient Egypt? Also, the dialogue was hilarious at times.
Ardeth Bay to the kid: You’ve set in motion a train of events that could bring about the next Apocalypse!
Rick O’Connell to Ardeth Bay: You, lighten up! And to the kid: You, get in the car! Well, it’s funny when you’re watching it…
These two Stephen Sommers films are unforgettably brilliant. And you can forget the awful threequel, THE TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR, if you try really, really hard, lol. And there’s no point comparing the 2017 Mummy film to even earlier films in the MUMMY franchise, because these include Boris Karloff’s 1932 masterpiece and the fantastic Hammer Horror Mummy films, and these just can’t be beaten, even if Tom Cruise had stomped Oprah’s couch into a bazillion couchy pieces.
But what the hell is this 2017 Mummy film even about, anyway? Wait till I have a quick look at Wikipedia. And the reviews. Wow, the reviews are absolutely awful. The film won a slew of ‘bad movie’ awards, including a ‘Worst Actor’ one for Tom Cruise.
Even the film’s director said he regretted making this film. There’s no fun in it, no atmosphere, no real romance, even though TC as U.S. Sergeant Nick Morton is throwing himself about the place like there’s no tomorrow. (TC is Tom Cruise, by the way, not Top Cat.)
Nick and his friend Corporal Chris Vail accidentally discover the tomb of Egyptian Princess Ahmanet while doing a tour of Iraq. Why is her tomb in Iraq? I forget. Anyway, Nick, Chris and a random archaeologist called Jenny Halsey unintentionally bring her back to life on the journey back to Britain. Why Britain? No idea. The plot is a bit of an old shambles.
Russell Crowe is there, acting weird, but again, I’m not sure why he’s in it except that he intends to let Set, the Egyptian god of death, possess Nick for some reason. There’s a dagger with a ruby on it, a sandstorm in London and- now this bit’s genuinely cool- there’s a massive ancient graveyard of Crusader knights found buried in the London Underground and the knights wake up at some point as zombies and start fighting everybody.
I’d watch a movie about that, now. There’s something very eerie about ancient knights. I’ve found them fascinating ever since watching whichever Indiana Jones fillum had an old knight at the end of it. The thought that they might live for hundreds of years, guarding whatever tomb or jewel or structure they’d been set to guarding by a higher power, is extremely interesting to me.
I do believe that that’s the end of the movie, folks, except that they may- groan- have left the door open for a sequel. God Almighty. Like I said earlier, I do love Tom Cruise and fancy the sculpted muscular arse off him, but this film should probably be quietly burned in a bonfire on the moors somewhere and never mentioned again. Even the special effects, which I presume cost, like, millions of U.S. dollars, are only ‘meh’ at best, for all the effect they have on one. (Did you like that ‘on one’ bit? ‘S dead posh, innit?)
Those of you who read my reviews regularly know that I like to take a positive view of most films, and there are some bits to like about this one, namely, the ancient knights, but Tom Cruise doesn’t even get his kit off in it, so I’ll literally never watch this movie again. And, if a sequel does ever come out, I’m going to hide under a pile of coats and hope to Christ that it’ll all be over soon.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
Her new book, THIRTEEN STOPS EARLIER, is out now from Poolbeg Books:
https://amzn.to/3ulKWkv
Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:
https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Stops-Sandra-Harris-ebook/dp/B089DJMH64
The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thirteen-Stops-Later-Book-ebook/dp/B091J75WNB/
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