The Mummy is a 2017 American action-adventure film directed by Alex Kurtzman and written by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie and Dylan Kussman, with a story by Kurtzman, Jon Spaihts and Jenny Lumet. It is a reboot of The Mummy franchise and the first installment in the Dark Universe film series. The film stars Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis,Sofia Boutella, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance and Russell Crowe.
The Mummy premiered at the State Theatre in Sydney, Australia on May 22, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 9, 2017, in 2D, 3D and IMAX 3D. It received negative reviews from critics and has grossed $345 million worldwide.
Plot[]
In 1127 A.D., a group of English crusader knights capture a large ruby from ancient Egypt and bury it within the tomb of one of their number.
In present-day London, a Crossrail construction crew discover the knights' tomb and a mysterious man is authorized to investigate the uncovered findings inside the site. In a flashback, the hieroglyphics on a circular mural in the tomb, which date back to the New Kingdom era, tell the story of the ruthless Princess Ahmanet.
She was first in line to succeed her father Pharaoh Menehptre only to be stripped of her birthright when his second wife gave birth to a son. Determined to claim the throne for herself, Ahmanet sold her soul to the Egyptian god Set, who gave her a special dagger to transfer his spirit into a corporeal form. After murdering her family, Ahmanet attempted to sacrifice her lover to give Set physical form, but her father's priests slew him and mummified Ahmanet, sentencing her to be buried alive for eternity inside a sarcophagus surrounded by mercury so that her monstrous form will not escape the tomb.
In present-day Iraq, soldier-of-fortune Nick Morton and his partner Chris Vail accidentally discover the tomb of Ahmanet after staging an airstrike on an insurgent stronghold. Jenny Halsey, an archaeologist who had a one-night stand with Nick, arrives and investigates the tomb, correctly concluding that it is a prison. After extracting Ahmanet's sarcophagus from a pool of mercury, Nick's superior, Colonel Greenway, places the sarcophagus on a transport plane, headed to England.
During the flight, Vail becomes possessed by Ahmanet's power after being bitten by a camel spider while inside the tomb. After attempting to open the sarcophagus, he stabs Greenway and attacks the group before Nick is forced to shoot him dead. A huge murder of crows then assaults the plane, causing it to crash and kill everyone on board except for Jenny, who is parachuted off the plane by Nick.
Nick awakens a day later in a morgue in Oxford and learns from Vail's ghost that he has been cursed by Ahmanet, who seeks to use him as a replacement vessel for Set. Ahmanet's mummy escapes from the sarcophagus and begins feeding on rescue workers to regenerate her decomposed body. Turning the workers into zombie minions, she lures Nick and Jenny into a trap, forcing the two to fight off the minions as they unsuccessfully try to escape. Ahmanet also recovers the blade of the Dagger of Set from a reliquary in a nearby church.
At the last second, unknown soldiers appear and subdue Ahmanet. Their leader, Dr. Henry Jekyll, explains that Jenny is an agent of Prodigium, a secret society dedicated to hunting supernatural threats whose base is under the Natural History Museum of London and contains such objects as a webbed hand and a human skull with fangs. He confirms that Nick was cursed when he unlocked Ahmanet's tomb and reveals his intention to complete her ritual and allow Set to possess Nick in order to destroy Set and end his evil forever.
Meanwhile, Ahmanet summons another spider to possess a Prodigium technician and frees herself from captivity, wreaking havoc, death and destruction in the process. Jekyll succumbs to his own dark impulses and transforms into Edward Hyde, his murderous and psychotic alternate personality; when Nick rebuffs Hyde's offer of an alliance between them, Hyde attacks and nearly kills Nick before Nick manages to stop him with the serum Jekyll uses to suppress his evil side. Nick and Jenny then escape from Prodigium while Ahmanet steals back the dagger, summons an army of deceased English crusaders to serve her and creates a massive sandstorm that ravages London. The undead knights slaughter the Prodigium soldiers in the tomb, allowing Ahmanet to recover the ruby and set it in the dagger's pommel, granting her all she needs to free Set.
Guided by Vail, Nick and Jenny flee into the London Underground tunnels under London but are attacked by Ahmanet's minions. Ahmanet captures Jenny and drowns her, hoping to break her hold over Nick. Nick puts up a fight, but gives up and lets himself embrace Ahmanet, using it as a ruse to steal the dagger and stab himself. His body is possessed by Set, who proceeds to join Ahmanet to uphold his end of the bargain until he sees Jenny's dead body, at which point Nick regains control and uses Set's powers to overpower and suck the life out of Ahmanet, turning her back into a shriveled mummy.
Nick harnesses Set's powers to resurrect Jenny, saying goodbye before becoming overwhelmed by Set's power and disappearing. Soon, Jenny regroups with Dr. Jekyll, and they discuss if Nick, now fused with Set, will succumb to Set's influence. Ahmanet's corpse is lowered into a locked pool of mercury within the Prodigium base for safekeeping. Later on in the desert, Nick resurrects Vail and the two set out on an adventure.
Cast[]
- Tom Cruise as Nick Morton A U.S. military ex-officer, who unintentionally unearths the tomb of Princess Ahmanet, unleashing an unspeakable evil. Nick becomes haunted, fused with and possessed by Set after Ahmanet puts a curse on him.
- Annabelle Wallis as Jenny Halsey A feisty, kind, stubborn and intelligent archeologist who has a past with Nick. She secretly works for the monster-hunting organization known as Prodigium.
- Sofia Boutella as Princess Ahmanet. She is loosely based on an amalgamation of the ancient Egyptian goddess, Amunet and Imhotep from the previous Mummy films. Once in line to be the queen of Ancient Egypt, Ahmanet murdered her father and his family in order to resurrect Set, an act for which she was cursed for all eternity and buried alive, until she is accidentally freed as the titular Mummy.
- Jake Johnson as Corporal Chris Vail Nick's friend and closest ally.
- Courtney B. Vance as Colonel Greenway Nick and Chris's superior officer.
- Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll. A brilliant scientist who leads Prodigium, an organization dedicated to locating, containing, and when necessary, destroying monsters. Due to a failed experiment intended to purge his soul of darkness, he must regularly inject himself with a serum to prevent himself from transforming into his evil and monstrous alter-ego, Mr. Edward Hyde.
- Marwan Kenzari as Malik Jekyll's chief of security and a member of the Prodigium
- Javier Botet as Set. The ancient Egyptian god of deserts, storms, darkness and violence, who aids Princess Ahmanet in her quest to rule Egypt. Set has a connection with Nick Morton, as the latter is intended to be the human vessel for his resurrection.
- Selva Rasalingam as King Menehptre, a pharaoh who is Ahmanet's father.
Production[]
Universal Pictures first announced plans for a modern-day reboot of The Mummy franchise in 2012. The project went through multiple directors, with Len Wiseman leaving the project in 2013 and a second director, Andrés Muschietti, in 2014.
Tom Cruise began talks about playing the lead in November 2015, with Sofia Boutella beginning talks that December. Kurtzman cast Boutella after seeing and being impressed by her largely mute performance in Kingsman: The Secret Service. Kurtzman noted that "if you look at her eyes, and this is what I got from watching Kingsman, there's a whole performance going on here. And in not saying anything but conveying that much to me, I thought oh my god, no matter how much prosthetics we put on her, no matter how much CG we put on her face, if I see this, she's going to convey something very emotional to me". Other casting news was announced between March and May, with Russell Crowe joining during the latter month. Shortly after the film opened Variety reported that Cruise had excessive control over the film and firm control of nearly every aspect of production and post-production, including re-writing the script and editing to his specifications, telling Kurtzman how to direct on set, and enlarging his role while downplaying Boutella's. Universal contractually guaranteed Cruise control of most aspects of the project, from script approval to post-production decisions.
Filming[]
Principal photography on the film began on April 3, 2016, in Oxford, United Kingdom and also took place in Surrey. Filming on the movie wrapped on July 17, 2016, in London. Production then moved to Namibia for two weeks, with principal photography on the film being completed on August 13, 2016.
Release[]
Initially scheduled for a 2016 release, the film was released in the United States and Canada on June 9, 2017, with international roll out beginning the same day. The film was screened in various formats, such as 2D, 3D and IMAX 3D.
On December 20, 2016, IMAX released a trailer with the wrong audio track attached; this unintentionally prompted the creation of memes and video montages featuring the mistakenly included audio track, which was missing most of the sound effects and instead featured Tom Cruise's grunts and screams. IMAX reacted by taking down the trailer and issuing DMCA takedown notices in an attempt to stop it from spreading.
Following the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing on May 22, Universal cancelled the film's U.K. premiere, which had been scheduled to take place in London on June 1.
Reception[]
Box office[]
The Mummy has grossed $80.2 million in the United States and Canada and $329 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $409.2 million, against a production budget of $125 million (with an additional $150 million spent on advertising). The film had a worldwide opening of $172.4 million, the biggest global debut of Tom Cruise's career.
In North America, the film was released alongside It Comes at Night and Megan Leavey and was originally projected to gross $35–40 million from 4,034 theaters in its opening weekend. However, after making $12 million on its first day (including $2.66 million from Thursday night previews), weekend projections were lowered to $30 million. It ended up debuting to $31.7 million, marking the lowest of the Mummy franchise and finishing second at the box office behind Wonder Woman ($58.2 million in its second week). Deadline.com attributed the film's underperformance to poor critic and audience reactions, as well as "blockbuster fatigue". In its second weekend the film made $14.5 million (dropping 54.2%), finishing 4th at the box office. The same week, Deadline reported that the film is expected to lose Universal around $95 million. It was pulled from 827 theaters in its third week and made $5.8 million, dropping another 60% and finishing 6th at the box office.
Outside North America, the film opened in 63 overseas territories, with China, the UK, Mexico, Germany, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Russia receiving the film the same day as in North America and was projected to debut to $125–135 million.[49] It opened on June 6, 2017, in South Korea and grossed $6.6 million on its first day, the biggest-ever debut for both Tom Cruise and Universal in the country. It ended up having a foreign debut of $140.7 million, the biggest of Cruise's career. In its opening weekend the film made $52.4 million in China, $7.4 million in Russia, $4.9 million in Mexico and $4.2 million in the United Kingdom.
Critical response[]
The Mummy received negative reviews, with criticism aimed at its incoherent narrative and shoehorned plot points setting up the Dark Universe. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 15% based on 225 reviews, with an average rating of 4.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Lacking the campy fun of the franchise's most recent entries and failing to deliver many monster-movie thrills, The Mummy suggests a speedy unraveling for the Dark Universe". On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score of 34 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". On CinemaScore, audiences gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.
Vince Mancini of Uproxx gave the film a negative review, writing: "If you like incomprehensible collections of things that vaguely resemble other things you might've enjoyed in the past, The Mummy is the movie for you". IndieWire's David Ehrlich gave the film a D-, calling it the worst film of Cruise's career and criticizing its lack of originality, saying: "It's one thing to excavate the iconography of old Hollywood, it's another to exploit it. This isn't filmmaking, it's tomb-raiding".
Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote: "The problem at its heart is that the reality of what the movie is—a Tom Cruise vehicle—is at war with the material. The actor, at 54, is still playing that old Cruise trope, the selfish cocky semi-scoundrel who has to grow up. ... The trouble is that Cruise, at least in a high-powered potboiler like this one, is so devoted to maintaining his image as a clear and wholesome hero that his flirtation with the dark side is almost entirely theoretical". Writing for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers gave the film one star out of four, saying: "How meh is The Mummy? Let me count the ways. For all the huffing and puffing and digital desperation from overworked computers, this reboot lands onscreen with a resounding thud".
Glen Kenny of RogerEbert.com gave the film 1.5/4 stars, writing: I found something almost admirable about the film's cheek. 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. Entertainment Weekly's Chis Nashawaty wrote that the film "feels derivative and unnecessary and like it was written by committee".
In BBC World News Culture, Nicholas Barber calls the film "a mish-mash of wildly varying tones and plot strands, from its convoluted beginning to its shameless non-end. Tom Cruise's new film barely qualifies as a film at all. None of it makes sense. The film delivers all the chases, explosions, zombies and ghosts you could ask for, and there are a few amusing lines and creepy moments, but, between the headache-inducing flashbacks and hallucinations, the narrative would be easier to follow if it were written in hieroglyphics".
In June 2017, a BBC World News article summarized the largely negative analysis of leading film critics and Peter Bradshaw of TThe Guardian wrote that the film "has some nice moments but is basically a mess. The plot sags like an aeon-old decaying limb, a jumble of ideas and scenes from what look like different screenplay drafts". Empire film magazine was more positive, with Dan Jolin awarding the film three stars. "It's running and jumping grin-flashing business as usual for Cruise, once more on safe character territory as an Ethan Hunt-esque action protagonist who couples up with a much younger woman, while another woman chases after him," he wrote. "And if the next installment-teasing conclusion is anything to go by, Cruise seemed to have enough fun making this that he may just return for more".
Dark Universe[]
Main article: Universal Monsters & Dark Universe
On May 22, 2017, Universal Pictures announced that its series of films reviving the studio's long-running Universal Monsters film series would be known as Dark Universe, and that Bill Condon will direct the second installment, Bride of Frankenstein, to be released on February 14, 2019. In November 2016, Kurtzman stated that the studio has ideas for various rebooted versions of "their monsters", and that he helped the studios' production team with creating updated designs for each of the characters. Each of these individual monsters were stated to be the focus of stand-alone installments first, before any crossovers would occur, with Kurtzman stating: "There might be reasons for this character and that character to come together, because the story tells us that's what the story wants. The story is what drives the choice. And if down the line, there's a big reason to bring them together, then great. But I promise, we're not starting there". In March 2017, producer Chris Morgan revealed that the studio is in the process of deciding the chronological order of each of the films, and when they will be released. The 2014 film Dracula Untold, starring Luke Evans as the titular character, was originally considered to be the first film in the Dark Universe; however, since the film's release the connection to Dark Universe was downplayed and the Mummy was re-positioned as the first film in the series.
Video Game[]
A video game adaptation titled The Mummy: Demastered was developed by WayForward Technologies and released in October 2017. It is a pixel art side scrolling "Metroid-vania" style game", Reception for the game was considerably more positive than the movie.
| ADVENTURE TIMELINE | ||
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| 1477 AD 200 BC / 1947 AD |
1127 AD / 2017 AD | |
| Dracula Untold The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor |
The Mummy | |