"I saw her. She is real."
"Please meet Princess Ahmanet. She will claim what she has been denied."
— Dr. Henry Jekyll
The Mummy is a 2017 fantasy Action Horror film released by Universal as the first, and ultimately only, installment of the Dark Universe, a Shared Universe based on its classic Universal Horror films.note The movie has Tom Cruise in the lead role, Sofia Boutella as the title mummy, Princess Ahmanet, as well as Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance, Javier Botet, Chasty Ballesteros, Marwan Kenzari, Dylan Smith, Selva Rasalingam and Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll.
This reboot was directed by Alex Kurtzman, known for co-writing the first two Transformers and the first two rebooted Star Trek movies, and was written by David Koepp (Jurassic Park) Christopher McQuarrie (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation), and Dylan Kussman, from a story by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus), Jenny Lumet (Rachel Getting Married) and Kurtzman.
It has a tie-in game made by WayForward Technologies known as The Mummy Demastered.
The cast includes:
- Sergeant Nick Morton (Tom Cruise)
- Colonel Gideon Foster (Courtney B. Vance)
- Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe)
- Corporal Chris Vail (Jake Johnson)
- Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis)
- Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella)
- Kira Lee (Chasty Ballesteros)
- Set (Javier Botet)
- Lorenzo Montanari (Dylan Smith)
- King Menehptre (Selva Rasalingam)
- Malik (Marwan Kenzari)
A group of military commandos bring the entombed Mummy of Egyptian princess Ahmanet from Iraqnote to the UK. However, the long dormant mummy awakens, revealing herself as an ancient princess whose destiny was taken from her, and sets out unleashing her revenge.
Previews: Teaser 1,
Teaser 2, Trailer 1,Trailer 2, Trailer 3.
The Mummy contains examples of:
- Affirmative Action Girl: A meta-example. In a franchise that usually only has one female lead per-film, this remake has two, one of whom is the main antagonist.
- Always Save the Girl: At the climax, when having to make the choice between saving the world from destruction through the god of death and saving the girl he met a couple of days back, Jack naturally goes for the latter.
- Ambiguously Evil: While he's very much on Ahmanet's side after the first act, Vail insists that his earlier zombified killing spree was done to prevent her from getting her claws into Nick.
- Ambition Is Evil: Ahmanet was mummified alive after she murdered most of her immediate family (father, stepmother and baby half-brother) in a bid to seize power in ancient Egypt.
- Ancient Evil: Ahmanet was sealed away long ago and was accidentally released in the modern day.
- Ancient Order of Protectors: Dr. Jekyll is part of a group called Prodigium, which at least appears to be one, as they have known about monsters for a long while.
- And the Adventure Continues: Even lampshaded by Nick again saying "Where is your sense of adventure?"
- Artistic License – History: Pretty much every detail about ancient Egypt is wrong — the look of the pyramids, the Egyptian beliefs of the dead, and Anubis. The biggest standout, though, is that the birth of a brother wouldn't challenge Ahmanet's ascension, it'd ensure it — the Egyptian royal family very much believed in Brother–Sister Incest to preserve the bloodline.
- Artistic License – Linguistics: Jenny is shown to be a competent speaker of Ancient Egyptian. It's actually completely unknown what the language sounded like, as even the writing was a mystery until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799; even the "simple" Egyptian she speaks is well beyond what real-world linguistics would allow. This could be Handwaved by the fact that she works for Prodigium, who probably have much better resources for translating and linguistics seeing as they have to deal with ancient horrors.
- Artistic License – Religion: Set is constantly described as the god of death. In actuality, he was the god of chaos, destruction, and war (and deserts, storms, foreign lands and so on), while death was wholly the domain of the more or less benign Osiris (god of the afterlife) and Anubis (god of funeral rites and cemeteries).
- Back from the Dead: Ahmanet of course, but apparently also Nick Morton after his plane, carrying Ahmanet's sarcophagus, crashes. Jenny and Vail are also resurrected after Nick gains the power of Set.
- Black Dude Dies First: Colonel Foster, the only black person in the movie, is the first to die courtesy of a possessed Vail.
- Body Horror: The sight of a rotting killer mummy regenerating her flesh, fluids, organs and setting her shattered bones sure ain't pretty. What she does to the poor slobs she kills and resurrects, even less so. God, Ahmanet's mummified form is a twisted dessecated corpse after her awakening.
- Bookends: The first and last scenes of the movie are Nick and Vail discussing a new place to go, with Vail disagreeing, Nick saying "Where's your sense of adventure?", and the two of them finally riding away on horses towards their next destination. The only difference is that in the end, while they are riding their horses, a sandstorm is trailing behind Nick, to indicate his new powers gained from Set.
- Buried Alive: Ahmanet's punishment for murder, especially given she had accepted a Deal with the Devil. It took a lot of effort to hold her there, given how an entire tomb was built for it, a weight to keep her tomb under mercury, a pipe system to bring in fresh mercury to counteract her powers and keep them dormant, and all built a thousand miles away from Egypt, in what's currently Iraq.
- Came Back Strong: Ahmanet apparently gave Nick super powers after she brought him back from the dead.
- Canon Discontinuity:
According to Kurtzman, the film ignores Dracula Untold, previously meant to be the beginning of the new Universal monsters universe. - The Chosen One: Ahmanet chooses Nick to be the vessel for Set. This is why she resurrected him after the plane crash.
- Covert Group with Mundane Front: Prodigium is hiding underneath the Natural History Museum of London.
- Creepy Crows: Ahmanet's original ritual includes the sacrifice of a large number of crows or ravens (we see them strung up by their feet, twitching). Later, gatherings of living corvids indicate her presence.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: As is the case with most mummies, every single attempt to even try and impede Ahmanet sans Prodigium managing to capture her ends up with her opposition getting the shit kicked out of them or killed. Nick returns the favour when he impales himself with Set's powers.
- Curse of the Pharaoh: The mummy this time is a Princess who tried to summon Set but was caught and then buried alive. After her tomb is discovered and her remains are removed, she starts cursing the people transporting her and begins feeding on people to regain strength.
- Cute Monster Girl: Ahmanet seems far more attractive and human-like than the typical mummy, but this doesn't hide the fact that she's an undead Obviously Evil abomination.
- Darker and Edgier: The film itself, while dark, is nowhere near as dark as the trailers made it look, but it is still much less comedic than The Mummy Trilogy.
- Deal with the Devil: Ahmanet's immortality and powers come from a pact she made with Set, the Egyptian God of Storms and Evil.
- Death from Above: Nick's allegedly foolproof plan in the beginning ends in a drone-launched missile strike against the small army of Iraqi insurrectionists they managed to piss off. One of the explosions accidentally opens up a hidden cavern beneath them and thus serves to kick off the present-day plot.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Ahmanet unleashes a sandstorm on London. It doesn't come from nowhere: all glass in the vicinity is destroyed and turned into sand.
- Distressed Dude: Many of the original Universal Monster movies featured a male monster chasing after a leading lady. This film features a female monster pursuing a male lead character.
- Durable Deathtrap: Ahmanet's tomb, complete with a system of weights that keeps the sarcophagus dipped in mercury.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Ahmanet, combining a mane of black hair and an Undeathly Pallor.
- Everybody Hates Hades: Unlike the last time the franchise involved an Egyptian God of Death, they get closer to choosing a correct deity in the role as the God of Evil by using Set rather than Anubis. While Anubis was a God of Death, he was not feared, or portrayed as evil in Ancient Egypt. Set was the God of Desert, Storms, and Chaos, though was never himself a God of Evil. Despite this, they STILL refer to Set as the God of Death.
- A bit of Truth in Television as the Egyptian Pantheon operated under a more Order Versus Chaos morality than Black-and-White Morality, the closest they had to a God of Evil in actuality was Apep.
- Evil Overlooker: Ahmanet's eyes are menacingly hovering over Nick on the poster.
- The Evil Prince: Gender flipped, Ahmanet was a princess, and she became a vengeful mummy.
- Explosive Instrumentation: One of the most blatant examples since the good old Star Trek days - when Ahmanet escapes Prodigium's hold, the entire room lights up like a New Year's Eve fireworks display in the wake of their tech detonating as if it was made from Semtex and magnesium.
- Extra Eyes: Set's powers grant an extra pair of irises, as seen in Ahmanet's eyes. So does Nick after being possessed.
- Eye of Horus Means Egypt: A very large "Eye Of Horus" is seen among the hieroglyphics in Princess Ahmanet's tomb. Possibly justified, as the Eye of Horus was actually a symbol of protection, which would be fitting in a tomb imprisoning an unspeakably powerful and evil being.
- Face–Heel Turn: Dr. Jekyll's alter ego Mr. Hyde pretty much decides that aligning himself with Set would be much more fun in regards to just causing random chaos.
- Feathered Fiend: Nick's plane crashes after a flock of Creepy Crows plows through the cockpit.
- Gender Flip: Unlike many previous mummies from Universal and Hammer, the titular mummy of this film is female.
- Gilligan Cut: The movie's present-day action begins with Nick assuring his reluctant partner-in-crime that entering the nearby Iraqi village is completely safe. Cue both of them being chased through the streets by angry insurrectionists with Michael Bay-level volumes of gunfire and explosions.
- Girl Friday: Kira Lee is this to Dr. Henry Jekyll.
- Glass-Shattering Sound: Ahmanet lets loose a shriek powerful enough to shatter various glass items after she's chained down.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Well, princess; Ahmanet was a princess, and she became a vengeful mummy.
- God of Evil: Ahmanet, the eponymous Mummy, makes a Deal with the Devil with Set, the Egyptian God of the Desert (symbolizing chaos, storms, death, and the like). While Set is portrayed as somewhat more benign in the original myths, this does get the title for the Egyptian God of Evil a lot closer than works that promote Anubis to this role.
- Going in Circles: Nick and Jenny escape from Ahmanet in an ambulance, but since she has a level of influence over Nick, he just drives straight back to the ruined abbey, thinking that he's found the highway.
- Good Powers, Bad People: Set could bring the dead back to life in pristine condition. But doing the opposite is just more appealing for him.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Set, the Egyptian god of evil, who had been made a deal with Ahmanet to kill her father.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: One of Ahmanet's mummy goons gets his lower half torn off during a car chase with Nick and Jenny. He doesn't even seem to notice and continues to fight until his upper body gets torn apart as well.
- Heir Club for Men: Ahmanet was the heir to her father's throne but lost the status as soon as her brother entered the line.
- Incongruously-Dressed Zombie: The lesser mummies Nick encounters, unlike most film mummies, are the product of Ahmanet's life-draining attacks on modern-day victims. Therefore, they're dressed in ordinary street clothes, with nary a bandage, funerary mask, or hieroglyph to be seen. Doubly applies to the re-animated Crusader corpses, whose period outfits don't match modern England or ancient Egypt.
- Insistent Terminology: Nick tries to tell Jenny what happened to him but as he is using layman's terms (coffin, writing) she keeps interrupting to correct his nomenclature (sarcophagus, hieroglyphics).
- Jar of the Bizarre: In the Prodigium Headquarters, various objects are found in storage, including a human skull with fangs in a jar and a preserved gill-man arm in a cube-shaped case.
- Jerkass: Nick is an arrogant, selfish, and occasionally cowardly and self serving guy. In layman's terms, he's kind of an asshole. Says something about Tom Cruise's performance that he still turns into an Loveable Rogue.
- Kiss of Death: Ahmanet's preferred method of draining her victims of life force. Nick uses Set's powers to do the same to her at the end of the movie.
- Living MacGuffin: Being the guy who broke the protective barrier, revealed the sarcophagus and first looked at its "face", Nick is imprinted by Ahmanet to become her "chosen one", to the point he survives a plane crash without a scratch.
- Magic Pants: Regardless of how much Ahmanet regenerates or attacked, There always is juust enough wrappings left over to cover her naughty bits.
- Male Gaze: There are a few scenes of the camera focused firmly on Ahmanet's behind as she's doing her evil thing.
- Meaningful Name:
- Ahmanet is a respelling of Amunet, a primordial goddess of Egyptian Mythology. The name itself means "hidden one."
- Nick as in Old Nick the Devil, and Morton, as in French for 'death'.
- Ahmanet is a respelling of Amunet
- Monumental Damage: The sandstorm engulfs the British Houses of Parliament and destroys the clock faces of Big Ben.
- Morality Pet: Jenny tends to bring out the best in Nick, but in the end he's savvy enough to admit that his love for her isn't powerful enough to keep Seth at bay by itself.
- Mythology Gag:
- "A new world of gods and monsters" refers to a famous quote from Bride of Frankenstein.
- Ahmanet can summon a face in her conjured sandstorms, something done previously in The Mummy Trilogy
- Also from the previous Mummy movies, during the battle in the Prodigium library, Jenny punches someone with the Book of Amun-Ranote
- In Jekyll's underground facility, the camera lingers on a hand belonging to Gill-Man, and on a vampire skull.
- Naked on Revival: Nick wakes up naked within a body bag in a morgue, after being part of a plane crash.
- Naked People Are Funny: After Nick's aforementioned morgue awakening, he is initially startled by Chris' ghost appearing before him, but Jenny and two coroners enter the room, leading to a comical beat where he remembers he's naked and quickly covers himself.
- Night of the Living Mooks: Every living being that Ahmanet drains of their life turns into a withered undead husk that follows her every whim. The only upside is that they're about as durable as you'd expect. The resurrected crusaders are this as well.
- Nipple and Dimed: Hilariously, Ahmanet's nude scene at the beginning has her nipple clearly and clumsily blurred out.
- Obviously Evil: In addition to the mummy wrappings, Ahmanet has scarification tattoos on her face, and two irises/pupils in each eye. Yeah, she's clearly a demonic sorceress.
- Orifice Invasion: Ahmanet escapes Prodigium's holding facility by summoning a spider, have it crawl into one of the prison operators' ear, take control of him and let him disable the mechanisms that are keeping her restrained.
- Our Liches Are Different: After she's resurrected as a mummy, Princess Ahmanet displays vast sorcerous powers courtesy of her Deal with the Devil with Set, including necromancy, telepathy, and summoning sandstorms.
- The Power of Glass: With the Dagger of Set, Ahmanet destroys all of the glass in the London to create a massive storm as a show of power.
- Punny Name: Nick Morton is a guy who apparently dies and comes back to life.
- Recycled Trailer Music: The second trailer has the instrumental parts of The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black".
- Revisiting the Roots: The movie seems to be going back to its original concept as a horror film like the 1932 movie whereas previous installments were more action-adventure with some horror and some comedy.
- Reconstruction: Reconstructs a major complaint about the previous entry in the franchise: rather than her god-like power and immortality coming from her mummification, she'd already made a deal with Set for them and the mummification was to imprison her.
- Sadly Mythtaken: Set is not the Egyptian god of the dead, death, OR evil.note He was the god of the desert, storms, foreigners, and chaos.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Ahmanet was Buried Alive in a tomb build specifically for that purpose, which the movie's protagonists conveniently break open.
- Seductive Mummy: When Ahmanet is first resurrected she starts out as a dessicated walking corpse, but after devouring enough lifeforce from her victims to restore her body she becomes a Cute Monster Girl. She also tries to seduce the hero by sending him visions, though she appears as she did when she was human.
- Shirtless Scene: Three from Tom Cruise's character; two from visions Ahmanet gives him, and one when he wakes up naked in the morgue.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the first things Dr Jekyll says to Nick:
- The protagonist talking to the decayed corpse/spirit of his comrade in a London pub is a fairly direct reference to An American Werewolf in London.
- The basic premise of a beautiful, undead woman with godlike powers rampaging through London whilst raising an army of undead by sucking out the life-force of her victims bears more than a passing resemblance to the infamous 1985 "Naked Space Vampire Movie" Lifeforce (1985).
- There are two nods to The Mummy (1999): the visual of an evil screaming face appearing in a sandstorm, and the Book of Amun-Ra from that film used as an improvised weapon.
- Nick is drawn to Ahmanet, just as Helena is drawn to Imhotep in the 1932 Mummy.
- Nick steals the dagger off Ahmanet in the same way Jonathan steals the star-shaped key off Imhotep; during a Neck Lift.
- A scarab worms its way into a hapless Red Shirt's brain in the 1999 movie.
- The underwater fight with Ahmanet and her undead minions alludes to a similar scene in Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2.
- Shown Their Work: Ahmanet is empowered by Set rather than Anubis, fixing the error the previous version made by getting the correct God of Evil. Further more, she made the deal with him to usurp the throne after her brother took her place in the line of succession - in Egyptian mythology, Set is depicted as the one who usurps the throne of his brother, Osiris.
- Sadly Mythtaken: The assumption that Set is the God of Evil is a common misconception continued in the film, with the closest God of Evil to the Ancient Egyptians being Apep.
- There's also the use of mercury as a weapon against monsters, given its similar properties to silver.
- The Smurfette Principle: Downplayed. Jenny is the only woman among the expedition group, but she isn't the only woman of major importance in the film.
- Spirit Advisor: Vail is one retaining his fatal injuries, something which reviewers made sure to compare to An American Werewolf in London.
- Start X to Stop X: Prodigum's plans for the dagger involve releasing Set into Nick so they can destroy his body in a controlled environment, vanquishing the dark god while he's still freshly installed in a mortal shell.
- Super-Empowering: Ahmanet does this to Nick when she brings him back.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: Ahmanet has them, and even duplicates the irises, pictured above. And apparently, so does Nick after said empowering.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Hyde for Jekyll and ultimately Set for Nick.
- Tailor-Made Prison: The Egyptians buried the mummified Ahmanet in one of these; buried thousands of miles from Egypt beneath the Iraqi desert in a cavern miles below the surface, her sarcophagus submerged in a pool of mercury and surrounded by protective statues of Anubis to keep her imprisoned within. At the film's end, Prodigium places the defeated Ahmanet back in her sarcophagus, flood it with mercury and then bury it in the catacombs beneath London to imprison her once more.
- Takes One to Kill One: Dr. Jekyll states this at the end of the movie, after Nick completes the ritual and allows Set to inhabit him in order to defeat Ahmanet.Dr. Henry Jekyll: Sometimes, it takes a monster to fight a monster.
- Tragic Monster: A strange example with Nick Morton. He has the typical beginnings of a tragic monster — in order to save someone he loves, he adopts a dark power that alters his personality and forces him into exile as he becomes a hunted man — but the trope ends up played more optimistically, with Nick's human side retaining a large amount of agency as he searches for a way to lift the curse, while he's set up to become a central hero in the franchise as a monster who fights other monsters.
- Undeath Always Ends: Subverted. By the end of the film Nick uses Set's power to take away Ahmanet's lifeforce, but the fact that the Prodigium goes through the effort of resealing her corpse back inside her warded sarcophagus indicates that she's still not truly destroyed.
- Villainesses Want Heroes: Nick is resurrected by Ahmanet as part of her plans, but she also appears to have a more personal interest in him if her leaning in close to Nick longingly on more than one occasion is any indication.Ahmanet: Come to me...
- Waking Up at the Morgue: Nick does this after the plane crash, apparently without a scratch on him. Its depiction in the trailer also doubles as a Jump Scare due to its editing.
- We Can Rule Together: Ahmanet says such to Nick, claiming that he can rule beside her after she has Set possess his body. Since doing so involves getting stabbed in the chest by a ceremonial dagger, Nick's not too keen on it. Hyde makes a similar offer a few minutes later, but he's not very interested in dominion and is more keen on all the destruction he and Set can cause.
- Wham Line:
- "This isn't a tomb. It's a prison."
- For those unprepared for it, "My name is Jekyll, Dr. Henry Jekyll." can throw people in for a loop.
- Wham Shot:
- In a way, Nick grabbing a berserk Jekyll's hand to activate the handprint scanner, which detects him as "E Hyde" instead.
- It appears that Nick has willingly handing over the dagger for Ahmanet to complete her ritual, and then suddenly, he completes the ritual himself, by stabbing himself in the abdomen.
- Would Hit a Girl: After the clear threat level Ahmanet displays and later killing Jenny and smacking him around the room like rag doll, Nick has zero qualms delivering a return beatdown upon gaining Set's powers before violently draining the life energy from her.
- Yandere: Ahmanet. While her goal is to resurrect Set inside of Nick, Ahmanet seems to actively despise Jenny, reacting in jealously and rage when Jenny pulls Nick away from her to escape Prodigium and later drowns Jenny so that she can have Nick.
- You Can't Kill What's Already Dead: Zigzagged Trope. The mummies in the film raised by Ahmanet are actually far more vulnerable than human mooks, as one might expect from a decaying body. However, they still ignore all pain and keep coming after losing one or more limbs. Ahmanet herself is much tougher, in no small part thanks to her magic.
- You Taste Delicious: In the climax Ahmanet pins down Nick (whom she is looking to make her consort) and licks his face with an Overly-Long Tongue.
"She's got plans for you, Nick."
