The Mummy – Like crossing the Sahara
Dudes…it has been SUCH a dry year at the show. Seriously bad. Your humble Average Dude has been heading out to my local moviehaus weekly for pretty much my whole adult life. Not so this year. Part of that is because of a busy schedule. Add to that the abundance of shows that might be worth watching on stream. But mostly, there just hasn’t been anything to really get excited about. Project Hail Mary, sure. Now You See Me 3 was good but not great. Usually, I can find something remotely worth spending my time and money on (receipts: I actually went to see The Meg 2 in theater).
This year, I’ve skipped multiple weeks. For a dude that loves everything about the theater experience to hard pass…that’s a problem for the industry. A big problem.
Dude forgot to do his homework
This week, there were a couple of options that at least showed up on the radar. One was ‘Normal’, starring Bob Odenkirk, which seemed a little too much like a cookie-cutter copy of Nobody (WHAT??? Hollywood would schlep out a rebranded product? Surely not!). So I opted to wait for it to show up on stream. I don’t think it will be long. Instead, I went to see Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.
I chose…poorly.
You may have heard of them
The Mummy stars nobody you’re absolutely positive you know from somewhere. Zero bankable names. That should have been my first clue that something was off. With the two previous iterations of The Mummy in my lifetime, they were headlined by known action stars – Brendan Frazier and Tom Cruise. Actors known for action movies. So, I (and many others, from what I am hearing) assumed that Lee Cronin’s The Mummy would follow suit. You know what they say about assumptions.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy takes the historical premise of the character and ‘re-imagines’ it. That word should have also tipped me off to at least investigate further. I can’t remember a single movie that has been re-imagined (air quotes) that has turned out well. Yes, there is a mummy. Sure, there is a curse on said mummy. Yes, that curse is accidentally loosed on an unsuspecting world. That is where the similarities end, I’m afraid. Lee Cronon is a director I’ve never heard of before and I completely regret not looking up his IMDB profile. Again, I failed to do the homework.
Why I’m Hatin’ on The Mummy
I’m not going to go into the details of this movie. I can’t. Not because of my solemn vow to avoid spoilers. It’s because there was nothing positive that it added to my life. The Mummy was a few small jump scares and a lot of garbage scenes with the sole intent to evoke shock and disgust. Clearly that was the goal and Cronin accomplished it. And it’s not like I haven’t seen my share of disgusting things both in and out of theaters. I guess it’s that, with maturity, I’ve learned that purposefully subjecting myself to it isn’t a good thing.
But The Mummy doesn’t stop with just the gross-out stuff. Nope. Cronin also incorporates the hellish. Demons and possessions and whatnot aren’t new to cinema. It’s been around since long before my time. But, as with pretty much everything, the ante always needs to be upped. And that’s the thing that has me hating on The Mummy the most.
Not since I was in high school
Back in the day, your humble Average Dude was into the slasher movies. Friday the 13th. Nightmare on Elms Street. Halloween. I get it. We were into the new, the extreme. Those were the extreme of the day. Again, Hollywood has to ratchet things up for the next one or the movie and franchise will fail.
Fast forward to today. We have the new breed of slasher films like Hostel and Spiral and Insidious and the list goes on. There’s a massive market for it. This iteration of The Mummy falls right in that basket of body parts. The villains these days are not only satanic, they’re also all-too human. They’re hideously depraved folks next door. That’s not great. I don’t have the time to go into all the many reasons why. Let’s just say that new generations getting used to seeing amoral people inflict heinous, soulless things on other people is tragic. It’s not overstating to say that cinema is displaying the fall of civilization. And its on the Grand Screen.
So where did the 1 come from?
There was a point in this movie where I leaned over to Mrs Average Dude and said ‘I could not hate this movie more than I do’. How then, can I give it even 1 out of 5? I guess because my take is personal. The actors did their jobs. The mission was to evoke revulsion. Mission accomplished. And I can’t give it a flat ZERO because I didn’t do my homework. So, it’s on me. I am saddened that this type of movie exists and there is a market for it. If this is your thing, you will like it well enough, and I’m sad for you. I really am. Please rethink your choices.
Some reviews basically call it ‘meh’ as far as the genre goes. It’s not even as gross-out/demonic/depraved as this genre gets? Holy guacamole.
So, it is with HUGE sadness I admit that Lee Cronin’s The Mummy made me The Dummy and I’m begrudgingly giving it a 1 out of 5 on a technicality. It’s detrimental to your core well-being and if this is your thing, I am truly praying for you.
A couple of Rotten Tomatoes professional reviewers had this to say:
‘It’s been a while since a horror film came along that left you genuinely fearful for the spiritual wellbeing of all involved.’ ~ Robie Collin, Daily Telegraph
Donald Clark of the Irish Times called it ‘recreational revulsion’.
What more need be said?
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