Mummy reboot offers few redeeming qualities

Sofia Boutella as the eponymous Mummy in The Mummy. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

Any sense of remarkable for the Tom Cruise starring iteration of The Mummy comes from how bad the movie is. Although it isn’t quite interesting enough to qualify as a trainwreck, it is a great example of how bad the screenwriting by committee method can get. There are six people who have their names attached to this thing, and it’s difficult to find areas where more than two of them agreed on a plot point or piece of dialog. The lack of cohesion is stunning and somewhat impressive in how it results in an otherwise unimpressive movie.

The messiness The Mummy exhibits starts with a random text opening quote followed by uninspired voiceover courtesy of a bored Russell Crowe. Then the movie starts in England circa 1127 A.D., then bounces back to present day England, then flashes back yet again to ancient Egypt before stopping for a while in the Middle East in modern times again. The writers in effect created four separate openings to this film, three of would be OK on their own but none of which work in unison with the others. What remains is a good indicator the movie lacks a single direction, a tone it wants to follow and an identity worthy of its predecessors.

What, then, is The Mummy supposed to be? Previous adaptations have worked as a horror film, using the supernatural aspects of the ancient evil to invoke terror. But no one involved in this version seems interested in having this movie be truly scary, and the trace elements of horror that sneak into this movie are subpar. The Mummy character has background comedies tracing back to the days of Abbott and Costello, and this movie does work best using the comedic elements. The writers mine solid material from the moderate silliness of the monster, with one scene involving Cruise, the monster (Sofia Boutella), a few henchman and an awkward entrance by Cruise's love interest (Annabelle Wallis) working as an entertaining example of awkward comedy. Appropriately enough the filmmakers abandon the intentional humor in the middle of the second act, leaving the one enjoyable part of this movie behind.

So what's left is an action-adventure movie, not too far off from the 1999 version, albeit with a slightly darker tone. Except the 2017 Mummy isn't particularly good as an action-adventure flick. The surprisingly sparse action sequences have little vigor and excitement to keep the viewer interested in the fates of Cruise and the far too young for him love interest Wallis. The adventure is limited to England and the early sojourn to the Middle East, making it a less than enthralling globe trotting journey. It's difficult to spend more than $125 million on a movie and come out with something this blasé.

The Mummy becomes remarkably stupid toward the end of the second act with the proper introduction of Crowe's character, the mysterious leader of a secret organization, Dr. Henry Jekyll. That's Henry Jekyll of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde fame. The reveal is as dumb as it sounds, and the scenario only gets worse when Crowe hams it up when he inevitably transforms into Mr. Hyde. It feels like one of the writers or a few people from Universal decided threw that in there to kick off the Universal monster movie universe, and it comes across as awkwardly as it sounds. It also makes little sense to have a man as volatile as Henry Jekyll be in charge of any secret organization, but that's one of the lesser problems this movie faces.

If there's any single potentially interesting aspect to The Mummy, it's an ending that isn't as saccharine and easy as it could've been. A real sense of tragedy sneaks in for the final few moments that makes sense despite all of the messiness beforehand. But, again, this movie is dumb. It's not smart enough to end at the right time, favoring an ending with even more asinine voiceover and a similarly useless closing scene with Cruise and resurrected co-star Jake Johnson. The Mummy is the type of movie that not only isn't able to do anything right, but doubles down on doing the exact wrong thing.

Review: One and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 110 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: Tom Cruise followers and viewers who want to see the start of a monster universe.

Take the whole family?: This'll probably be a little intimidating for kids younger than 8.

Theater or Netflix?: Once again, stay at home and let it come to you.

Is the film sexist?: It is with its treatment of Sofia Boutella's character. Having the monster as a woman is fine and kind of cool, but the filmmakers portray her as a Jezebel creating mayhem for the men around her. That the filmmakers literally bind her at one point is troublesome for a whole host of reasons as well.

Watch this instead?: The 1999 Mummy with Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weisz isn't great, but the action is solid and the characters are fun enough. It also has one of the cooler haboobs ever depicted in a movie.

'Nice Guys' in name only

Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe star in "The Nice Guys." Image courtesy Warner Bros.

The cruelest part of “The Nice Guys” is, after almost two hours of blood, sex and death, all of the chaos on screen never actually means anything. It's director/co-writer Shane Black's greatest joke in a film loaded with great gallows humor and pain, that the borderline heroics of two schlubs in well over their heads results in no change to the world around them. Their success leads directly to failure and the loss of several lives of varying levels of innocence along the way.

It's a fitting coda to a story based in 1970s Los Angeles yet rooted in detective stories like “The Big Sleep,” in which the plot is as logical as an 8 year old's Hot Wheels track. Nothing is quite as it seems from the get go, starting with the chosen career paths of bruiser Jackson Healy (a very bulky Russell Crowe) and private eye Holland March (Ryan Gosling). The former, who proclaims himself to be something of a vagabond searching for meaning in life, has the fists of a fighter but the nose of a gumshoe, while the latter is an alcoholic loser whose source of income entails taking money from elderly women for easily solvable cases. What kind of shenanigans can ensue when these two wacky characters meet for the first time? Technically the first encounter entails a broken arm granted to Gosling's Holland by Crowe's Healy, but the second meeting serves as the start of a very dangerous business relationship complete with goons (Keith David, Matt Bomer and Beau Knapp), a steely government official (Kim Basinger) and her assistant (Yaya DaCosta), and a mysterious girl named Amelia (Margaret Qualley) at the center of all the mayhem.

It's a very old school approach to a film that very much lives in its setting, coupling the grittiness of the streets with the rise of porn as a legitimate force in the entertainment industry and the slowly but surely declining Detroit automakers. The combination results in a pitch perfect milieu for a good detective film, with the dirt and flash representing the conflict between the lifestyles lived by the investigators and the people they're involved with. “The Nice Guys” doesn't view those as mirror images; instead, they're effectively depicted as forces drawing money in theoretically sinful fashions. In Black's view, it's the porn industry that's noble, or at least the career with the potential to change the world, sharing the spirit for betterment possessed by the film’s twenty somethings. It's that sense of trying to do something that leads Holland and Jackson to enter themselves into the arrangement in the first place. Crowe's Jackson aspires to recapture the feeling he had when he broke up a robbery a few months prior; Gosling's Holland wants some semblance of happiness and to show his daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) he is at least moderately competent at his job.

But good intentions can lead to hellish places, especially with characters like these two who lack the qualifications to make their dreams come true. Jackson's moment in the sun is tainted, unwittingly to him, by an epic bout of vengeance he wrought, whilst Holland is too drunk and too much of a loser to follow his ambitions on his own accord. They might be the titular nice guys, but the title itself is something of a joke too; a label like “nice guy” means very little when its ascribed to people like Holland and Jackson. That's why the heart and soul of “The Nice Guys” belongs to Rice's Holly, who serves as the Penny to the Holland/Jackson Inspector Gadget. She's often the smartest person in the room, a very courageous character who fights with her wits and with a little luck on her side. Neither Jackson nor Holland could fulfill their spiritual quests without her presence; they advance somewhat as people because she's around to take care of them. The concept is a little reductive considering how often such roles are filled by women, yet it is effective in large part because of Rice's performance.

Then again, none of this is shown to matter at the end. Whatever personal improvements the eponymous nice guys make is curbed by a world actively acting against their best intentions. It's a cosmic joke, darker than the rest of the black comedy Black puts on display in the movie. Yet it is necessary though to serve as an exclamation mark for Black's ultimate point with “The Nice Guys”; one's advancement in life is never enough to change the world.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 116 minutes

Genre: Action Comedy

Ask Away

Target audience: Audiences down for some retro action and watching a burly Russell Crowe punch people.

Take the whole family?: It has the right mixture of violence, nudity and inappropriate language to deserve the “R” rating.

Theater or Netflix?: It's good enough to merit an excursion, but not vital to see on a big screen.

Do Crowe and Ryan Gosling work as comedic actors?: For two guys without extensive backgrounds in comedic acting, they do pretty well for themselves. Crowe works within his limitations for the most part – effectively punching and acting a little slow and very gruff – but Gosling exhibits a penchant for pulling off a pretty good pratfall.

Watch this as well?: Shane Black dipped into a similar detective story/blend of dark humor with his directorial debut “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” Along with Black's material are two films by acclaimed writer/director Martin McDonagh that are dark, violent and very often hilarious: “In Bruges” and “Seven Psychopaths.”