The Mummy (2017)

#StokerScore 7/10

Let me start by saying that I have a problem with the concept of PG-13 horror movies. I think it is a contradiction in terms because how can an adult audience be horrified by something that struggles to scare a thirteen year old? And there it is, the core issue with these movies. But not for the reason you may think.

Just stop for a minute and consider what horrifies you....I guess we all have our own ideas but in cinematic terms it's the scares, the jumps, the feeling of impending doom, the make-up, the characters behaving against expectations, not knowing what's coming next, and yet it's possible to find those in PG-13 movies.

The fact is that Universal are not using the term 'horror', instead it is a Dark Universe and this allows them to approach their characters with the hope of appealing to a wider audience and therefore potentially more money taken. This is why Warner Bros. are looking at the supernatural side of comics with Justice League Dark, although it doesn't get much darker than Batman vs Superman. Still, recent discoveries that audiences do like to watch R-rated films have been discarded in favour of selling zombie mummy and God of Death plushies. Seemingly, where the monster movies of the thirties and forties, or the Hammer revivals in the sixties and seventies aimed to scare their adult audiences, Universal is now happy to try to scare/wow everyone.

It's fair to say, then, that I approached this movie with low expectations for horror and high expectations for a Tom Cruise movie whose recent choices have seen some excellent results; The Jack Reacher films, Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow and the last two Mission Impossibles have been good movies and so it was that in these respects I was respectively surprised and contented. 

There are more horror elements than I expected, inspired in no small way by American Werewolf in

London and for those of you who know the John Landis classic you'll spot them immediately. Sofia Boutella is very good as Princess Ahmanet, convincingly devious, and Cruise is in Edge of Tomorrow mode with his level of disbelief at what is going on around him as he slowly figures out what is patently obvious to the audience, even without the signposting from the trailer. Then again, better to enjoy the theme park ride and not wonder how it works.

The failures in the movie are in the character of Dr Henry Jekyll and Prodigium, the organisation for which he works? It's not explained anywhere near clearly enough what role the organisation plays, why it exists or why, given the levels of tech they seemingly have available to them, that Jekyll can't more effectively control his change into Edward Hyde who, by the way, may have arrived via dialect coaching from some of the 1930's Universal horror movie support cast. The only thing missing was a deep, East End fog that could have been referred to in his cock-er-ney accent as a "cor blimey, right old pea-souper and no mistake".

Visually the movie owes debts to Jeepers Creepers, Alien: Resurrection, Lifeforce, Brendan Fraser's Mummy, and the aforementioned American Werewolf in London, among others. The dialogue is decidedly dodgy at times, too and I couldn't help but grimace at Annabelle Wallace's shouting of "Get her, Nick!" which she immediately repeated.

Overall I enjoyed it. I didn't mind the references to future movies, Creature from the Black Lagoon's hand and vampire skull were two that I noticed, I liked skipping between Egypt, Iraq and London, but the key difference between these and the thirties movies were that they took themselves and their source material more seriously, it wasn't until the advent of Abbott and Costello that barrels could be heard being scraped. I'd prefer them to dial back the comedy and focus more on filling the audience with more unease but looking at some of the future movies lined up, which I hope they get the chance to make, I'm not convinced that will happen.

PS In case you're wondering, yes, Tom does a lot of running too.