There isn’t a world in which films made solely for the purpose of money-making turn out to be good. These highly plasticized studio films are genuinely cringeworthy to watch, as all of their budget and effort goes into big-budget action sequences and boring plot devices that don’t make much sense. There’s been a lot of this going on in Hollywood for a long time, and The Mummy (2017) directed by Alex Kurtzman is one of the brightest examples of this glaring problem.
How to Stream or Download The Mummy (2017)
You can stream it or you can download the film from a digital store. Check out also the previous films from the franchise The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.
The Movie Review
In the world of archaeology, it’s almost natural to discover things where they shouldn’t be. However, when U.S Army Soldiers Nick and Chris end up discovering a tomb belonging to an ancient Egyptian princess, they realize there’s a lot of darkness that surrounds it.
Archaeologist Jenny Halsey is called to the scene, and together they figure out that this tomb belongs to Ahmanet, an ancient princess who attempted to summon the God of Death, Set. The researchers get too close to the sarcophagus and set forth a series of events that will bring the destruction of the world.
It’s hard to say what I consider worse in this film, the story or the characters. They are both equally horrendous to be honest, though the story definitely takes the cake for some of the most random incidents to ever take place in a movie.
Story
It doesn’t really have a definite narrative drive to it, it works based on random coincidences and then those coincidences are expanded upon randomly. Alex Kurtzman tries his best to save this film, but when you have a script as decimated as this, there’s not much to do here.
Thematically, this film was all about a woman’s obsession with having her desires fulfilled. This should have set the tone for the film, yet it didn’t do any such thing. In fact, Ahmanet’s motivations were never explored at all. The other fun fact about this film is that none of the characters have any motivations to be doing what they’re doing. To make sure Nick is invested in what’s happening, they killed off Chris at the start to make it more personal. It just doesn’t do anything interesting on many fronts, and that’s keeping it humble.
Characters
The characters are somehow the most archetypal I’ve seen in a while. Anabelle Wallis’ Jenny Halsey is genuinely the most boring representation of an archaeologist I’ve seen in a while. Tom Cruise’s Nick is somehow the worst part of this film, being able to do literally anything and everything, while Jake Johnson as Chris is the stereotypical comic relief guy who cracks jokes every three seconds.
The only character that I felt wasn’t out of place was Sofia Boutella’s Ahmanet, and perhaps that was because of her acting, or simply due to the make-up and cosmetic work that made her look the part.
Visuals
Visually speaking, the only thing I can say about this film is that it looks the same as every single action film of the past 10 years. It’s hard to mention one specific aspect about this film that stands out visually, it doesn’t have good camera work, and it doesn’t have good color grading. Perhaps the CGI is decent at times, and it looks especially good during some of the stunt work. Though aside from that, even the CGI looks genuinely fake and hard to look at.
Music
Brian Tyler’s soundtrack might have been one of the few saving graces of the film, though it’s nothing particularly good either. It’s not something that stands out during the film. None of the scenes feel truly elevated by the music when it comes to emotion or intensity. It’s perfectly fine as background noise during a high-octane chase sequence or an airplane crashing, but aside from that, there’s barely any substance to it.
The Bottom Line
Ultimately, there’s very little to like about this film and barely anything to call cinema. This film was a downright atrocity, and it’s genuinely hard to figure out why it was even made. It’s a film that makes sure to let you know it’s as artificial as a movie can get. There is no emotion, no heart, no excitement, no passion, and definitely no skill that went into it.
