(Spoilers, Nothing but spoilers)
The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise, New Girl, Blonde Girl, the new Girl Mummy and Russel Crowe is quite a few minutes of stuff which happens. It’s dark in terms of lighting and light in terms of plot. The film is the second attempt to launch a cinematic universe which will bring together the Universal Monsters (Dracula Untold being the first) although the Universal Monsters have previously been brought together in 2004’s Van Helsing. The film is directed and co-written by Alex Kurtzman, a friend of J. J. Abrams and frequent collaborator of Roberto Orci who also has a production credit on this film. Kurtzman and Orci previously failed to maintain a Cinematic universe when their script for The Amazing Spiderman 2 resulted Sony studio’s abandonment of that franchise and all planned films in that universe including a Sinister Six and Venom movie. Kurtzman litters his directorial debut with visual cues alluding to such films as The Dark Knight/ Avengers/ Skyfall as well as the previous reboot of The Mummy franchise starring Brendan Fraser. His script is full-to-bursting with moments where characters helpfully explain exactly what has just happened, what is happening and what will happen just in case the audience have taken a nap.
I went to see this film because a couple of students had invited Aimee and I out for dinner, to spend time together before we leave China next month. Upon completing our delicious meal we thought that we would continue the fun by finding something to see at the cinema. It was about 8:00 in the evening and almost all of the day's screenings had finished already. We tried to see Alien Covenant but there weren’t enough seats for all of us so we went to another cinema and bought tickets to the very last available film which was The Mummy. It had already started but no one cared. We wandered in to a modestly crowded theatre and Tom Cruise was playing Nick, in Iraq with Nick from New Girl playing someone else. They were in a lot of danger because there were bullets flying everywhere. The building they were standing on was destroyed but they weren’t so that was OK. I have been to see a number of films in China and the audiences have been universally badly behaved. Chatty, on their phones, elbows sticking over onto my seat, the sins go on. It is something that one just has to accept, writing it off in the list of cultural differences and yet, this audience was captivated. They were quiet, not once did I see a phone. It was surprising. Audiences took phone-calls during Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, they shouted at their children in The Lego Batman Movie, they chatted all the way through Logan but for The Mummy they behaved themselves.
Cruise and Nick’s destroyed building hits the ground and opens up a monolithic cavern beneath a tiny village. No one cares until a blonde scientist woman points out that there might be treasure in it. She and Cruise had sex but he stole her map so she’s annoyed with him. She isn’t embarrassed about the sex though and she wants to make sure everyone knows that. Cruise is working for the American military but he runs away from them sometimes to search for buried treasure with his friend, Nick.
Nick, Cruise and Woman all go abseiling into the cavern and they find lots of hieroglyphics and statues of Anubis at the bottom. In Iraq. Nick doesn’t want to be there because he’s scared. There is a sandstorm coming so the three steal a sarcophagus using one of the American army’s helicopters. Our heroes are flown away from the sandstorm in an American fighter jet with their new sarcophagus but Cruise is having bad dreams about an "ethnic" woman and Nick was bit by a spider so he loses the sight in one of his eyes and tries to free the Mummy in the sarcophagus but only succeeds in stabbing the Corporal and getting shot three times by Cruise. The American military plane is attacked by CGI birds which means that it falls out of the sky, crashing over London halting its trip from Iraq with the Egyptian coffin in its cargo hold. Cruise gives Woman a parachute and he dies in a plane which falls out of the sky but its OK because he comes back to life in a body bag without a cut or blemish on his skin.
Woman and Cruise get a drink but Nick isn’t quite as dead as we thought he was. He hasn’t taken death quite as well as Cruise, however, as he has makeup on his face and one of his eyes has a blind-contact lens in it. Cruise is attacked by rats and then he and Woman visit a church. The Mummy is there and she tries to sacrifice Cruise but luckily she doesn’t have the red gem in her special knife so Cruise and woman steal an ambulance and drive away. The Mummy uses magic and Cruise actually drove back to the castle so he drives away again and crashes the ambulance. It looks like The Mummy is going to kill him so it’s lucky that Dr Henry Jekyll has a squad of soldiers who catch The Mummy and knock out Cruise.
Cruise wakes up and meets Dr Jekyll. Jekyll has The Mummy chained up and Woman was working for Dr Jekyll because they were both interested in The Mummy. Woman thinks that she and The Mummy can have some grown-up-girl bonding time but The Mummy doesn’t so she gets a spider to crawl into a man’s ear who hits a machine with an axe that frees her. While this is going on Jekyll turns into Mr Hyde while Cruise is in the room. Cruise give him his insulin shot and he turns back.
The Mummy has escaped so Cruise and Woman run out of Jekyll’s secret base into a natural history museum in Glasgow into a street in London. The Mummy makes it windy so Cruise is almost hit by a bus which he avoids by jumping into its glass instead of its metal and he ends up in the London underground. Nick pretends to be friends with Cruise but isn’t really so Cruise runs away. The Mummy finds a red gemstone and wakes up some chain-mailed corpses of knights of the round table. She captures woman and takes her to the river which is under the London Underground when a train comes. The knights chase Cruise but he is chasing The Mummy who has managed to drown Woman. The Mummy now has a knife and a gemstone which means Tom Cruise could have power over life and death. He wants to bring Woman back to life so he stabs himself then beats up The Mummy in a very awkward scene of a man at the peak of physical strength grabbing a woman by the neck, throwing her into walls before holding her down and forcing her to kiss him. The kiss takes The Mummy’s life but Cruise gives that life to Woman.
Dr Jekyll and Woman stand in the secret base and say that Cruise is now a monster and Jekyll says a monster is the only way to fight a monster before winking at the camera and saying sequel. Tom Cruise is in a desert now. Nick says Thanks for bringing me back to life, Tom Cruise You are awesome and we think you are cool and Scientology is cool and the two ride horses towards the Pyramids of Giza.
The film ends.
People leave the theatre.
Half way to the door they forget what film they were watching.
Half way home they forget that they saw a film at all and wonder how they could have lost 33 Yuan, it was right there, it was right there in their pocket.
The Mummy’s curse has been lifted.
Post Script: Brendan Fraser feels that sweet buzz of schadenfreude.
He may have been in Furry Vengeance but he was never in anything that bad.
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