Alex described this movie as 'not that terrible' when he switched to it in the hotel Thursday night. I'm not sure I'd agree, but I was barely paying attention for the first hour. I'm generally indifferent to Tom Cruise films at best. Mission Impossible 2 is still the only film starring him I've sat and watched the whole way through (assuming Tropic Thunder doesn't count), and that was also because of Alex.
Anyway, Tom Cruise plays a merc who finds an ancient tomb, and then blithely shoots the chains keeping an ancient sarcophagus sealed because he's an idiot. Mummy escapes, Cruise is cursed because she's going to use him as a host for Set, but he's decided to maybe not be an entirely selfish piece of crap and manages to control Set's power. I think.
Also, there's an entire agency or group dedicated to dealing with supernatural stuff, headed by Russell Crowe playing Dr. Jekyll? I didn't know that watching the movie, I couldn't hear the dialogue over the AC. I read it off the IMDB page instead. When he attacked Cruise, I assumed he'd had some bad prior experience with the mummy that meant she could control him from a distance. Put on a cursed ring, bitten by a radioactive scarab, had a college friend put forbidden sand down his shorts on an archaeological dig. As Kelvin noted a few weeks ago when we discussed Godzilla, this was when everyone wanted their own expansive, connected film universe to copy Marvel, and this was going to start another one. Hahahahahhaahaha.
The movie has this thing where it feels a bit campy at times, but also like we're supposed to treat it seriously with all the dim lighting and shuffling corpses. I laughed pretty hard when Cruise charges Ahmanet in a fury and calmly slaps him to the ground, then does it again when he tries again a minute later. But I'm not sure I'm supposed to be laughing. Am I supposed to wince, like oh no, how will Tom Cruise recover from such a brutal hit? I guess it's good for demonstrating how hilariously outclassed he is, that the power of love or revenge or whatever isn't going to magically make him be able to kick an immensely powerful undead being's ass.
I didn't see enough of it to decide whether Alex was right about it being not that terrible, but it certainly wasn't good enough to command anything close to my full attention.
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6 comments:
I'm not sure if the Monsterverse is still going to happen; this didn't do very well at all, and Dracula Untold did so badly they have quietly forgotten it's supposed to be part of the project.
I'm still waiting for this to show up on Netflix or Amazon Prime so I don't have to pay extra to watch it.
The original black and white Universal monster movies were a big part of my childhood (thanks to repeats in the 70s) and I so wanted this to do well even with Tom Cruise who I can take or leave ... but everything I heard made me hang back.
And yeah, the Dark Universe shared world is dead in the Black Lagoon water, I think.
Kelvin: I don't think I even remember Dracula Untold ever existing.
Gary: Good call on waiting. If I'd paid actual money to watch this I would have been annoyed with myself (or more likely Alex since it would have almost certainly been his idea).
I wish I could forget it.
I thought for a minute that you were talking about the one with Brendan Frasier,because that was a great little movie!
Kelvin: I've heard alcohol may be the answer!
Sallyp: Yeah, I enjoy that one, because I think it knows its being campy or silly and just rolls with it. Like when Frasier tries to intimidate mummies by yelling at them, only to have them yell right back.
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