Skip to footer

'The Mummy' is a tentpole production with nothing under the tent

( PG-13 ) ( Monitor Movie Guide )

The latest and lackluster reboot of the 'Mummy' story has mediocre CGI warfare. Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Sofia Boutella, and Jake Johnson star.

|
Patrick T. Fallon/Reuters
A 75-foot tall sarcophagus to promote the film 'The Mummy' stands at the Hollywood and Highland gateway in Hollywood, California, on May 20, 2017.
  • By Peter Rainer Film critic

Alex Kurtzman’s “The Mummy” reboots a franchise I would gladly have dispensed with from the start. The lackluster new incarnation, starring Tom Cruise as a wisecracking Army sergeant who loots antiquities from Iraqi war zones, is a generic summer time-killer that, alas, is positioned to bequeath sequels into the foreseeable future. Just what we all need right now – another sagging tentpole production with nothing under the tent.

Cruise’s Nick Morton and his Army buddy, Chris (Jake Johnson), using a map filched from English archeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), discover an Egyptian coffin, far from its Mesopotamian origins, buried in a pool of mercury. Before long, Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella, who is not bad), the sole heir to Egypt’s throne before her pharaoh father spoiled everything by siring a son, appears on the scene – mummified, sort of, but still game, and fixated on Nick as her “chosen one."

Much mediocre CGI warfare ensues, featuring only one effective sequence: Chris attempting an underwater rescue of Jenny while pursued by a squadron of zombies. Zombies figure big in “The Mummy.” They have no more life than the movie itself. Grade: D+ (Rated PG-13 for violence, action, and scary images, and for some suggestive content and partial nudity.)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'The Mummy' is a tentpole production with nothing under the tent
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2017/0609/The-Mummy-is-a-tentpole-production-with-nothing-under-the-tent
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe