SKELETON OF A BETTER MOVIE - THE MUMMY (2017)

Given what I see on the internet, I am starting to think I might be the Last Tom Cruise Fan. Enthusiastically hating (on) him was a cottage industry for a while in the 2000s (particularly right after his appearance on Oprah); these days, he's just met with a kind of dull disdain.

Anyway, Greetings and Salutations! This is the second part of my series Skeleton of A Better Movie where together we take the dollar-bloated carcasses of Hollywood movies and strip them down to the lean mean entertainment machines that they could have been - if the crew had only popped down to Nigeria and asked me, amirite?

Today, we are tackling The Mummy. Noooo, not that. No that one. either. Or the sequels. Or The Scorpion King (which was actually kind of awesome honestly. Kickass soundtrack too. And The Rock!)

But no. Today we're looking at the 2017 remake/reboot/revamp/rectifiable error starring Sofia Boutella, Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise and others. For some reason, a whole lot of people with a whole lot of Hollywood rep and a whole lot of money got together and thought, "yeah, let's make this movie." Insurance companies signed off on it, writers rooms filled up, producers rubbed their hands together with glee.

Well, we are in the age of the remake. So mote it be. For those of you who haven't seen this execrable mess, I will summarize:

Egyptian Princess Wants to Be Pharaoh. Kills Everyone Who Stands In Her Way. Accesses Badass Magic in the Process. Ends Up Tranqued and Mummified By Her Surviving People. The End.

Except Not. Present Day. Military Fun-and-Profit Guy and his Sidekick stumble across Ancient Tomb. Guess Who's Inside. Supernatural Ridiculousness Ensues.

There's your summary. Let's get active.

One of the stated goals of this movie was rebottle the magic of Iron Man (2008); in other words, make a movie that sets up an entire cinematic universe of movies with a big climactic team-up of all the heroes against an even bigger threat. In this case, the heroes in question are the Universal Studios classic monsters: The Mummy, The Wolfman, Dracula and --- who else? I presume, Frankenstein's Monster. Maybe the Invisible Man?. File it under never-going-to-happen.

They figured they'd call it The Dark Universe.

In my opinion, they failed woefully -- not because it was an impossible task but because, AS USUAL, too many cooks spoiled the broth. This movie had no idea what it wanted to be so it tried to be everything at the same time: action-comedy-horror-fantasy-magic-versus-science-League-of-Extraordinary-Gentlemen-type-deal.

The best movies succeed by being about something. If they're about many things (like The Matrix for instance), the moviemakers figure out how to synthesize them so all the horses pull in the same direction.

How to do that with this one? Well, let's see:

• Princess Amunet, stick-fighting in the desert. Sure fine, why not. Homage to the 1999 movie (or the sequel rather)

• female Mummy works. Again, an homage to the 1999 movie (a fusion of Imhotep and Anuksunamun)

• as I said before, I just might be the The Last Tom Cruise Fan. I don't necessarily think he was miscast but I don't know there are a lot of active-duty Long Range Recon Patrol military types in their 50s. Oh well, he's ripped and fit enough to kinda carry it off (in a realistically ripped-older-guy sort of way rather than the steroid-enhanced likes of Expendables-era Stallone)

• our hero and sidekick running wild in the desert doing the Three Kings thing (albeit George Clooney, Ice Cube and Mark Walhberg didn't have the pleasure of being able to call in drone strikes to hide the evidence, lol) Yeah, I can dig it. All the places with cool archaeological finds these days are war-zones anyway so that part works.

• Jenny the archeologist and her map and the tomb and okay. May I interject that this movie does have amazing set design? Because yeah.

• sure would have been nice if they gave us more of a connection/reason/explanation for why Amunet is so connected to Sgt. Morton (Cruise's character.) At least in the 1999 movies, they actually mentioned reincarnation and Vosloo's Mummy genuinely gave a shit. This one just seems to be the villain because the plot says "GO! BE THE BAD GUY!" and her ancient Egyptian boy-toy just seems to be the super-villainous equivalent of the boyfriend in a female singer's R&B video

• I see the Black Guy Dies First trope is still alive and well (so to speak) What was the point? The plane crash would have killed them all anyway! Guess it's just one of those Hollywood things that never really goes away ...

• it would have been interesting if they'd had the intestinal fortitude to actually kill off Tom Cruise's character in the plane crash. Woulda be a shake-up on par with Ned Stark's death or Steven Seagal's in Executive Decision. That would have been a shock that would get the movie-goers to buck up in their seats

• Jenny could then have been the protagonist from then on out
• or heck, The Mummy could have been the protagonist. Sofia Boutella's character, I mean
• yeah, this is a good tangent. Imagine if Tom Cruise's character had died. SHOCKER. All bets are off. Now Jenny is haunted by his ghost (or Corporal Vail's. Both would be a bit much, I think. Or maybe not. Maybe his ghost gets to do something heroic to help save the day in the end. Skip that tangent)
• so. You've got Amunet, our Monster In A Box a la Hannibal Lecter, playing mind-games with Jenny and Dr. Jekyll (who are now our protagonists) Perhaps we come to realize that whenever she's talking to Jekyll, she's really talking to Hyde -- and Hyde is listening. Maybe we make more of Jenny's desire to know what lies beyond the veil of death and the temptations of mystical power.

How do we start the process of getting Amunet on side -- or at least close enough that she's in the tent pissing out? Perhaps she is betrayed by Set who finds a way to act in our world without her as a conduit. Perhaps, as self-preservation, she is compelled to side with the only other folks who stand a chance of stopping It.

• Russell Crowe's Dr. Jekyll was magnificent: great acting, great voice, great accent undermined by a smorgasbord of stupid dialogue and nonsensical plot occurrences.
• Would have been awesome to see more of Jekyll's organization (The Prodigium) Worldwide conspiracy of investigator-archaeologists? In a world where actual supernatural shit is going down? That kicks all kinds of ass, let's see more of that, why not. When was it founded? Is Jekyll some flavour of immortal or a cold-sleeper? Is he their first, only or merely current leader? If so, who were previous leaders (Dr. Moreau? Mary Shelley?)
• in that vein, we could have this not be Jenny's first encounter with the supernatural, just the biggest
• I also rather liked Jekyll talking about how evil is perpetually outside the universe looking for a way in. Like a roiling maw of vast dark chewing at the skin of the sphere of our reality. Like Warren Ellis' Bleed, only malevolent. Sometimes, it penetrates through science (as with Jekyll/Hyde, for instance) other times through magic as with vampires (those skulls) or, you know, the titular Mummy. Sometimes, it just seeps through in places and moments of great horror and madness (like the WW2 concentration camps in The Atrocity Archives or R. Scott Bakker's topoi or Jim Butcher's Never-Never entry-points)
• perhaps, all supernatural shit comes from Capital-E Evil.

• the nonsense about vaccines was nonsense, even as a metaphor
• perhaps, Amunet comes to realize that Set is just what the Egyptians called it, not what it actually was. Set presumably is just another inroad Evil made into our reality
• better clarification on what the hell Hyde thought he was going to achieve. "Something more collaborative," he said. It would have been far more interesting if Hyde agreed with Jekyll's goals but just figured his methods were a little too milquetoast. Perhaps, Hyde's goal would be like Loki in Avengers, to rule. That would mean him seeking not to dissect and study the monstrosities but to use them. That puts Jekyll kind of on the side of the angels. Needs must, devil take the hindmost, can't rule the world if it's ended.
• in the event that we keep Morton around, better clarification on the curse. Sounds to me like it consists of being haunted by his dead friend and being immune to plane crashes
• the full Hyde transformation should have been saved for the next movie and I bet it would have been if the filmmakers had had the courage of their convictions or, to put it another way, there's your fucking Dark Universe.

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As you can see, as promised, this has become a series. Here's the previous episode where we dissected Suicide Squad (2016) for the bones of a better movie. Feel free to offer suggestions for the next one -- or you know, I'll just choose it myself anyway haha.

Peace out. Upvote, Comment and Resteem -- especially if you're a whale - or a bot - but even if you're not. Tell your friends! :D