u/roku9413

Yeah, after I rewatched the mummy returns in theaters, I said that I wanted to do more mummy material to review and well, here’s more material to review.

Now I don’t wanna come across as some dude who wears nostalgia/rose colored glasses over the Brendan Fraser films. For the record, I can roll with other interpretations of the property. Case in point, I’m a Spider-Man fan boy. Spider-Man is one of my all-time favorite superheroes. I’ve also rolled with all the different cinematic versions of Spider-Man. I have love for the Tobey Maguire movies, the Andrew Garfield movies, the Tom Holland films, and even the animated movies. So generally speaking, I was intrigued by this film. Especially with the team that was behind us with Lee Cronin, who directed evil dead rise. And as a horror nerd and an evil dead nerd I thought that would be a cool combo to see him in the world of the mummy. As well as the fact that James wan is a producer and wan is one of my favorite horror Movie directors. Aside from Aquaman 2, the guy makes gold. That being said, I was underwhelmed.

I’ll say what I liked about this film. First off, May Calamawy. She’s the cop who’s trying to figure out who kidnapped the kid and why. I like her in a lot of stuff. She’s a good actress. Especially in stuff like Moon Knight and Ramy. At least here, she’s the only person who’s written like a real character. The camera works should also get its props. I mean this movie does have the same directing style as evil dead rise. So you do have some really cool close-ups, and split diopter lens moments. There’s no denying Lee Cronin knows how to direct horror sequences. But also the makeup Work should be given some love too. Especially in this day and age where people are doing a lot of CGI/AI stuff that it’s always nice to see them go back to the old ways of makeup. I really appreciated that.

That being said let’s get into the negatives. First off, the movie is called the mummy. Why is it called the mummy? I know there’s a mummification ritual in the movie, but that is literally it. The rest of the time this movie is just a standard demon possession film. With all the clichés that you have seen in those films. In fact, it’s so much like a demon possession film that it feels more or less like an evil dead film. I wouldn’t have been surprised if this was Lee Cronin‘s original pitch for the evil dead rise sequel. And then Sam Rami and Bruce Campbell just read the script and said that “this was cool but we wanna go in a different direction”. And either Lee Cronin got salty or just really love that script that he decided that he was just gonna go and make that film and just instead of evil dead he slapped the mummy on it. And for the record, I can enjoy and approach the mummy like that if there is still a feeling of the mummy in there. But there’s not. It’s just your run of the mill demon possession film that just has the mummy in name only. Jack reynor is the lead here and he’s always been hit or miss with me. Like I liked him in free fire and midsommar but in transformers and here, he’s written as a dumbass. But of course this movie has only one aim and that is to gross you out. And as much as I am a horror nerd, and I love the horror genre. There are some types of horror movies that I cannot roll with. One of them is gross out horror. I kind of find it just cheap. And this movie is aim is just to disgust you and a lot of the scares of that just come across as just boring to me. And if you’re gonna go the gross out route at least make it fun. Like I watch the Terrifier movies and I always laugh when I watch those films. Just because as much as their aim is to gross me out I at least can laugh at how ludicrous a lot of the gross stuff is. That wasn’t the case with this movie. When the gross stuff happened I was just kind of like “OK.” It came across as cheap shock value.

Guys, Lee Cronin’s the mummy let me down. This movie is just the mummy and name only. And doesn’t do anything interesting with the mummy name aside from just making a run of the mill and cliché demon possession film. This movie oddly reminded me of the Wolfman movie that came out last year. I remember walking out of that film and I felt like the people that made that movie were kind of embarrassed that they were making a Wolfman movie. And I felt that way with this film. I felt like all of the parties involved in this movie were just kind of ashamed that they were making a mummy movie. In which case I have to ask, why did they make it in the first place? If you want a fun demon possession movie, rewatch the evil dead films, or the conjuring or the exorcism of Emily Rose. If you want something to fill your mummy void until the next mummy film comes out next year, just go and rewatch the first two movies and the animated series. This movie gets a 5/10.