The Mummy - Spoilers Galore The acting is one of the few things that I was okay with. I feel that Sofia Boutella has grown as an actress. Tom Cruise is good as usual, so is Russel Crowe but nothing outstanding from them either. My favourite performance comes from Anabelle Wallis whom I think is very good at displaying the range of emotions needed for her role.
'Tis not enough though. There's a limit to what I can swallow, even for this kind of films. The introduction sequence where Nick and Vail are shown going after treasures/spoils of war to sell on the black market while still on duty as military officers felt ludicrously incoherent. Worst part is probably when Vail calls in an airstrike.
Nick breaks the mechanism that was keeping the tomb engulfed in mercury. Feat that he accomplishes disturbingly easily, even considering the fact that firearms weren't really a thing in ancient Egypt. He then somehow becomes the chosen one, interacts with Ahmanet, getting access to flashes of her memory and she gains some control over him, but WHY ?
So now he's cursed and it means that experiencing a brutal plane crash on solid land will leave him absolutely unharmed (never explained). He wakes up in a morgue so I'm guessing he had no pulse when they found him (never explained and no follow up on that whatsoever). Oh and there's the part when Vail gets bit by a venom-free spider. The venom starts taking effect during the flight (yeah yeah I know it's not venom it's MAGIC), his health rapidly but gradually degrades to a point where it's alarming and obvious, yet no one notices and he himself never asks for assistance or at least tells someone he is not feeling well. He just lays down, decays and dies without once making any kind of connection between the bite he received earlier and the dreadful evolution of his condition.
But wait, now that Nick has survived the crash, he has visions of Vail who starts blaming him for shooting him even after being reminded that his reanimated brain dead corpse just killed their superior and tried to kill Nick and Jenny...REALLY ?
Nick can't escape the curse, so the plan is to do the ritual to kill Seth, but wait, he can actually break the malediction if he destroys the stone, because no stone no ritual, no ritual no curse... But isn't he cursed already even before the ritual ? Did he not just survived a plane crash because of said curse ? So, apart from preventing the ritual, what does destroying the gem actually do ? ? I honestly don't understand the mechanic of that curse and since I couldn't care less, I haven't tried to make sense of it. I also didn't care about characters in the story and what could happen to them. Oh Jenny died ? OK... She's alive again ? Great... Vail is also resurrected and they go on an adventure... SURE.
So let me get this straight, the hero completed a ritual to: gain immortality, revive the dead, suck out people's life force and give birth to evil incarnate by receiving Seth who is described as pure evil, God of Darkness, Satan etc. As heroes do right ? So where is Seth ? Isn't he supposed to posses him or something ? Did the hero managed to keep the darkness at bay because through a short and shallow relationship with a girl, he realized that deep down, he might be a decent human being ? Didn't he perform a supposedly unbreakable ancient ritual with legendary artefacts ? Does the writer give a damn about the coherence of his plot ?
Is it just normal now for the hero of such a story to make such a terrible decision over something so trivial ? I get it, death is sad, but guess what, everyone dies, it's the circle of life, and it's not like he just lost his wife or his kid right ? Not only did he accept to receive evil incarnate to revive a single a girl he barely knew, but he also revives Vail who casually comes back like nothing ever happened and more importantly, not a hint from the movie that reviving people should at least have some grave consequences. Jenny and Vail seem perfectly okay, whole and just as they were before. So it's just your typical resurrection from pure evil forces with no side effects then, classic.
I didn't see any point in Jekyll/Hide except setting up the "Dark Universe" franchise. Funny how Hide wanted to make a pact with the hero to work for him after he'd perform the ritual. Riiiight, and what exactly do you bring to the table ? You can what, punch slightly harder that a regular human being and have superior yet inconsistent strength ? Cool, cool cool cool... Even Ser Meryn fricking Trant would beat that guy in single combat !
The only time I laughed was when Jenny tells Nick that he's a good human being because he didn't hesitate to give her the only parachute. He silently looks at her with a conflicted expression and tells her he thought there was another one. Ironically enough, I don't think that the scene was meant to be funny, oh well.
I got the feeling that the movie is bad, knows it, but still tries to go for it hoping it will work somehow.
There a few bits I enjoyed here and there, the plane crashing was one of them. Obviously, and as I was reminded reading other reviews, the film will appeal to some folks out there, which is perfectly fine with me. I can't think of any reason why I would recommend that movie though, or what kind of public it would suit. Give it a go AT YOUR OWN RISKS (theatre is very costly nowadays).