If you haven't seen it yet, there is a new trailer circling the webisphere. No, I'm not talking about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (which should be good IF Baby Groot isn't as annoying as I assume it's going to be). I'm talking about Universal's
I've watched it three times now and I'm still not sure what that taste is in my mouth. It's mostly anger and rage and probably a little tarter... but it might just boil down to confusion. I understand that Hollywood is completely against any sort of new idea (like, hey, maybe creating a new movie monster or creature that's as fun as The Mummy), and I also understand that they're starting their new expanded monster universe (like The Avengers but with old horror monsters). What I'm upset at is the fact that they felt like the needed to remake an already great movie (unheard of, I know!) The Brendan Fraser movie, while imperfect, is a ton of fun. It's a cheesy and poorly acted and absolutely magnificent. Sure, it was followed up by a pretty terrible sequel and an ABYSMAL third movie I refuse to acknowledge, but there are few movies like the first Mummy.
Now we have Tom Cruise. I have no problem with Tom Cruise. He's a fucking ball of nuts, but most of his movies are good. He's a very entertaining Hollywood figure who tends to choose very fun roles from mostly good scripts. Yet, this version of The Mummy doesn't look like fun. It looks like Mission: Impossible meets The Mummy without any of the fun horror schlock that makes the 1999 version great. It's big CGI plane crashes and explosions and bus crashes and Russell Crowe and it doesn't look like anyone is having any fun. It's cool to look at, sure, but there's a reason Brendan Fraser became mildly popular and famous after The Mummy is because it was such a FUN movie and he is such a FUN character. Only after that movie did we learn that he's a terrible actor, but fun nonetheless.
Obviously this could be due to a poor edit of the trailer. An entire action sequence with a crashing plane has already been essentially spoiled (another annoying thing Hollywood is doing now), but I just didn't care. To be fair, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for 1999's The Mummy and no matter how good (or bad) this one is, that one will always be my favorite. I'm just upset that this new monster movie universe couldn't have just included the Brendan Fraser version. It's a perfect enough movie and could've been the anchor for a new set of horror movies. It's not like you couldn't still get Brendan Fraser...
I thought i read somewhere that universal is connecting all their monster movies, starting with Dracula Untold.
ReplyDeleteYep. They are doing that, but I've heard that they're not counting "Dracula Untold" as part of it since it failed in the Box Office and was generally a shitty movie. But... Russell Crowe is in "The Mummy" and also playing Dr. Jekyll... so here comes more fuckery.
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