The Mummy

Disney has the Marvel superhero world, while Warner Brothers has the DC heroes like Batman and Superman.   Hoping to at least get a piece of the substantial money to be made in these franchises,  the powers that be at Universal have decided to release ‘The Dark Universe,’  which will feature an array of classic movie monsters from their heyday in the 1930’s; to include Dr. Jekyll, The Invisible Man and Frankenstein.  To start things off, they have chosen to reboot The Mummy.  Tom Cruise stars as a sort of low rent anti-Indiana Jones, who is out to look for and resell ancient artifacts while serving as an Army recon specialist (He is no George Clooney from “Three Kings!”).  In the deserts of Iraq, he accidentally stumbles upon Ahmanet, an Egyptian princess buried far away from Egypt due to the extremely heinous nature of her ancient crimes!  She was buried alive (as all good monster mummies are), and her sarcophagus submerged in mercury, to keep her from rising up in the future to complete a nefarious scheme that included murder and world domination.   Most of the movie involves her chasing Tom Cruise so that he can be her new partner and love, and they can rule the world together for eternity.  I found the whole premise rather silly.  Along the way, we meet Dr. Jekyll, played  by Russell Crowe.  This short segment was the only part of the movie I found fun.  Dr. Jekyll heads a secret organization that finds, studies and destroys evil in the world.  The fact that he does this while trying not to turn into the diabolical Mr. Hyde adds some much needed camp to this movie.  I think if you go in with low expectations you will be surprised, and even entertained; but you will not be dazzled like you would be watching the newest “Wonder Woman” or “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies.  I was so excited when I heard that Universal was rebooting all of the classic monsters; but after watching this first movie, I am not so sure.  I am intrigued to see what Johnny Depp does with  Invisible Man, and Javier Bardem seems like a great choice to play Frankenstein.  I just hope they have a better script and can give their movie a little more heart.