So, two days after watching this, I've had time to absorb, and reflect.
Here's the Double Toasted review of the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvSXlmAUH88
And I pretty much agree with the whole thing.
This film is
terrible. Doubly terrible, actually, because I was really rooting for it and I was hoping it would be good. The 1932 film and 1999 remake are fantastic films (one a creepy dreadful horror, and the other a swashbuckling grand horror-adventure), but this film is just a mess, in terms of tone and writing. You can tell that 4-6 writers worked on this, seperately, at random times, with zero communication with one another. It is absurd. There are just so many goddamn problems with it, but you know what, let me elucidate on what's good about it:
1) Tom Cruise:
Cruise Missile is on point as always. He's basically playing a douchier Nathan Drake, but I liked that. He brings a natural and easy charisma to a role that in any other actor's hands would probably be thoroughly unlikable. Plus, his commitment to stick with the absurd must be commended.
2) Airplane sequence:
This was cool.
3) Attempts at psychological horror and other interesting ideas.
There are some cool
ideas. There's a neat idea (that they failed in executing) that they lifted from an American Werewolf in London (the below pic is a scene from American Werewolf that's a bit gory)
The idea that the Mummy is inside Tom's head is neat. They should have done more with that.
4) The ladies are pretty:
'Nuff said.
What sucked:
Everything else about the film. Literally. The Mummy's motivations were terrible and flat. The Prodigum stuff with Russell Crowe was incredibly terrible, because you can tell that he and Mr Hyde are just stuffed in there for the "Universe" connections. He is the literal definition of "shoe-horned". Jake Johnston or whatever the fuck his name is sucked. The film has no good flow. The characters are underdeveloped, and feel like they have zero relationship with one another beyond "We need the next scene to happen, so have this conversation now". Like, the blonde lady saying Tom Cruise is a good man, and then going out of her way to help him and shit, like they don't really explain why all of a sudden she wants his dick so bad, and then the ending is totally ludicrous, and then there's the weird almost-rapy-but-not-really-but-kinda-feels-like-it thing at the end. The powers make no sense, there's no greater context, the humor, adventure, and horror is not blended well.
Like, either go for a grand horror narrative like the 32 film, or go for a swashbuckler with horror tones like the '99 film, or do your own psychological/comedy thing, but all you did was take every ingredient, and toss it in without thinking how to properly proportion it out.
This film is dumb. I, myself, could have taken the bones of this film and have written a much better narrative. And I am not a great writer by any means, but there's no consistency here. The characters are cardboard, and they look like even more bland cardboard cause they're acting against the natural force of Charisma that is Tom Cruise.
Oh yeah, and this is Kurtzman's first directorial effort, but you know what, I'm not going easy on him. The direction is awful. The editing is abymal. The music is forgettable. The art design and set design is nice.
Here's the thing, I'm not comparing it to the '32 and '99 films. I wanted it to stand on its own merits, but it doesn't have many, if any, merits.
I'll probably say more stuff later, but I'll leave you with this for now:
