Despite its record-breaking opening in South Korea, even a naked Tom Cruise could not save The Mummy from receiving negative reviews. The Mummy, the first instalment of Universal's The Dark Universe, has drawn flak for its messy plot.
The 54-year-old Cruise, who plays the role of the 'creepily ageless' Nick Morton, awakes naked in a morgue. The undead Cruise is indeed a poor fit for the first movie of the monster universe (according to ABC) despite lots of running, swimming, or even acting in a zero-gravity scene.
The Mummy's story revolves around a betrayed ancient Egyptian queen (Sofia Boutella) who was safely entombed in a crypt is suddenly awakened in our current day. The movie will show how Cruise's Nick Morton will stop the monster as she rampages the modern day London.
Alongside Cruise, the movie cast includes Russell Crowe, Sofia Boutella, Courtney B. Vance, Annabelle Wallis, and Jake Johnson. The movie will open in theatres on June 9, 2017 (US).
Let's take a look at what critics have to say.
Variety
No one over the age of 10 ever confused them with good movies, but the "Mummy" franchise that kicked off in 1999 had a joyously sinister and farfetched eye-candy pizzazz. Basically, these were movies that pelted you with CGI — scuttling scarabs, swarms of skeletons in moldy rags — and mixed the cheesy/awesome visual onslaught with a handful of actors (Brendan Fraser, Dwayne Johnson) who seemed just as lightweight at the FX. So "The Mummy," starring Tom Cruise, raises a key aesthetic question: How, exactly, do you reboot empty-calorie creature-feature superficiality?
The Guardian
This has some nice moments but is basically a mess, with various borrowings, including some mummified bits from An American Werewolf in London. The plot sags like an aeon-old decaying limb: a jumble of ideas and scenes from what look like different screenplay drafts.
Hollywood Reporter
Weirdly out of place here, Cruise brings little daring and less charm to the film, though to be fair to the actor, his character's a stiff: Nick Morton, an Army sergeant who secretly loots antiquities from Iraqi war zones, might have been a charismatic antihero in Drafts One or Five of a script credited to David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie and Dylan Kussman. But what made it to the screen is a watered-down version of "irresistible rogue" with all the irresistibility trimmed away.
The New York Times
The "Mummy" reboot from 1999, directed by Stephen Sommers and starring Brendan Fraser, was kind of fun. Monster movies frequently are. This one, directed by Alex Kurtzman and starring Tom Cruise, is an unholy mess.
The Verge
Judging from the opening tomb-robbing action and some early banter, Kurtzman and company seem to want to position Nick as an Indiana Jones figure, a tough man with a vulnerable streak and a knack for straight-faced knockabout wit. Instead, he comes across as heavier and duller, frequently stymied by events around him.
Forbes
It starts pretty badly and then coasts well enough on its own grounded and horror-centric terms for about an hour before collapsing into a puddle of cinematic-universe-driven indecision. It starts badly and it ends worse, which is a problem for word-of-mouth. Tom Cruise is ill-suited to the role, offering little more than his trademark intensity and the always-present notion that he's playing a character about 20-years younger than his actual age.
Times of India
Unfortunately, the entertainment value in this franchise-building reboot is thinly spread, leaving you feeling deprived if not cheated. This is a shoddy stab at merging action, mythology, horror and comedy resulting in conflicting tonality. Even the occasionally surprising, massive set pieces with elements flying at you in 3D, are interspersed between two-dimensional characters who exist merely to cater to movie tropes.
