It’s amazingly relentless in its naked borrowing from other, better horror and sci-fi movies that I was able to keep occupied making a checklist of the movies referenced.

But I have to be honest-speaking of venality, I found something almost admirable about the film’s cheek.

So yes, should one choose to take offense, one certainly may. The other is faux-archeologist/genuine anti-evil secret agent Jenny ( Annabelle Wallis) who’s mainly around to be rescued by Nick, and whose surface venality suggests that his business card describes him as a “lovable rogue.” (She is played by Sofia Boutella, whose filmography testifies that she’s accustomed to being ill-used in motion pictures). 'The Mummy' has two female characters: One is corrupt albeit not unattractive ancient Egyptian royal Ahmanet, who, once freed from her tomb in the present day, is the incarnation of all evil and stuff. Oh, sure, filmmakers, by all means use a tragic and unnecessary war that’s still yielding horrific consequences for the world as the backdrop for your stupid horror movie plot machinations, no problem here.Īnd, of course, there’s the movie’s very old-school sexism. I got sand in my synapses during an early scene in which Tom Cruise, as a looter named Nick Morton (oh, “Mort,” I get it now), and his sidekick, played by Jake Johnson, casually slaughter a bunch of “Iraqi insurgents” trying to track down a mysterious treasure. “The Mummy,” directed (if that’s what you want to call it I honestly think the better term here is “ostensibly overseen on behalf of the studio executives”) by Alex Kurtzman from a script by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, and Dylan Kussman, has plenty to get irritated about.

Perhaps I’m becoming jaded in my old age, but I was more amused than appalled.ĭon’t get me wrong. By now you’ve probably read a number of scathing reviews of “The Mummy,” Universal’s inaugural entry in a possibly grievously ill-advised “Dark Universe” franchise, wherein the legendary studio intends to reboot its most Famous Monsters of Filmland.

The mummy movie list