Universal's latest revamp of one of their classic fantasy horror IPs has some problems. The very beginning is poorly-handled exposition, which could've better served the film by being introduced later. The very end is poorly-thought-out from a narrative standpoint, without getting into spoilers. And there's a very specific set of scenes in the middle that are just plain poorly-done, feeling like intrusions onto the picture from a different one. All three, on top of their inherent problems, are clearly trying waaaaaay too hard to "set up a Cinematic Universe," as is the obsession these days.
Also, I do wish the camera were a lot less jittery and the scenery better-lit in places, especially since I suspect it's there to mask poor make-up work or CGI.
That out of the way... the rest of the film is fine. A reasonably-entertaining adventure. I'm not really a horror fan, so I don't know how well it holds up from that metric, but I liked the action-adventure spectacle of most of the chase scenes. Tom Cruise does an excellent job of playing the scoundrel-with-a-buried-heart-of-gold part, without overselling one or the other, and his physical commitment, as always, is there front and center. Boutella's mummy character is a strong villain, with clear motivations, just enough depth to not come across as an empty antagonistic presence in the story, and does all manner of entertainingly-vile things throughout. And the rest of the supporting cast is... okay. Not particularly well-scripted, but they do fine, and none of them were that annoying.
As a big fan of the "cultural" mummy myth, in films and games, I think this movie caught the gist of what people like me enjoy in the monster archetype. And, again, while I'm not 100% happy with the way the ending went, I do hope to see more and better Universal films in this vein, inevitable disappointing crossovers and all. It's not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a perfectly good piece of entertainment, and that's all I was after.
's Okay, Yeah.
Universal's latest revamp of one of their classic fantasy horror IPs has some problems. The very beginning is poorly-handled exposition, which could've better served the film by being introduced later. The very end is poorly-thought-out from a narrative standpoint, without getting into spoilers. And there's a very specific set of scenes in the middle that are just plain poorly-done, feeling like intrusions onto the picture from a different one. All three, on top of their inherent problems, are clearly trying waaaaaay too hard to "set up a Cinematic Universe," as is the obsession these days.
Also, I do wish the camera were a lot less jittery and the scenery better-lit in places, especially since I suspect it's there to mask poor make-up work or CGI.
That out of the way... the rest of the film is fine. A reasonably-entertaining adventure. I'm not really a horror fan, so I don't know how well it holds up from that metric, but I liked the action-adventure spectacle of most of the chase scenes. Tom Cruise does an excellent job of playing the scoundrel-with-a-buried-heart-of-gold part, without overselling one or the other, and his physical commitment, as always, is there front and center. Boutella's mummy character is a strong villain, with clear motivations, just enough depth to not come across as an empty antagonistic presence in the story, and does all manner of entertainingly-vile things throughout. And the rest of the supporting cast is... okay. Not particularly well-scripted, but they do fine, and none of them were that annoying.
As a big fan of the "cultural" mummy myth, in films and games, I think this movie caught the gist of what people like me enjoy in the monster archetype. And, again, while I'm not 100% happy with the way the ending went, I do hope to see more and better Universal films in this vein, inevitable disappointing crossovers and all. It's not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a perfectly good piece of entertainment, and that's all I was after.