The Mummy

Tom Cruise is fully committed for a gonzo performance as Nick Morton, a soldier moonlighting as a tomb raider in Iraq. After stumbling upon the tomb of an ancient Egyptian nasty named Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), he winds up on a plane with the mummy, some soldiers, and a mysterious woman named Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis). The plane crashes, and then the weirdness begins, with Nick surviving the crash due to being possessed by Ahmanet. Post-crash, Ahmanet starts sucking face with cops and dead guys, turning them into a zombie army as she marches on London. Along the way, Nick meets Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe) in a subplot so freaking unnecessary it’s maddening. Jekyll is here because he’s part of Universal’s new “Dark Universe” scheme, an attempt to Marvel-size the classic Universal monsters into some sort of connected, ongoing series. What a seriously stupid mistake this is. Nothing connects these monsters other than their original gothic origins, so trying to make them modern stand-ins for Iron Man and the Hulk is a joke. And, take it from me, Dr. Henry Jekyll is no Nick Fury. Cruise is stuck laboring in this convoluted, yet sometimes almost entertaining, mess. The Dark Universe is a bad idea, and the movie suffers for it. The folks at Universal should step back and reconsider the whole thing. It’s lame.