The Mummy reboot slammed as 'worst Tom Cruise movie ever' by critics
Universal’s first foray into the depths of its Dark Universe probably would have benefitted from a brighter guiding light.
After spending over three decades dazzling audiences across large-scale action-adventures on the big screen, Tom Cruise’s latest genre spectacle, The Mummy, is set to unravel in theaters this Friday. Movie critics, however, got a peek under wraps this week, as movie reviews for the blockbuster project debuted online Wednesday morning. The consensus? According to a vast majority of them, perhaps this romp should’ve remained buried.
EW’s Chis Nashawaty says “the story feels as stitched together as Frankenstein’s monster: a little bit of An American Werewolf in London here, a little Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade there, some Jekyll and Hyde as frosting,” adding that, while Cruise is the film’s “secret weapon,” the project ultimately “feels derivative and unnecessary and like it was written by committee (which a quick scan of its lengthy script credits confirms).”
The Mummy stars Cruise as Nick Morton, a globetrotting explorer who accidentally unleashes an unspeakable, ancient Egyptian evil into the world in the form of Sofia Boutella’s Princess Ahmanet, a four-pupiled, reawakened royal wreaking havoc on earth during her multi-millennia quest to find a mate.
RELATED: Meet Sofia Boutella, the new Mummy
Cruise boards the franchise at the top of what Universal hopes to mold into a successful worldwide cinematic universe, with subsequent entries planned to feature the Invisible Man (Johnny Depp) and Frankenstein’s Monster (Javier Bardem). It was previously brought to life by the studio throughout the 1930s and 1950s, with actors from Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney, Jr. lending their acting talents to the series; it was later popularized for contemporary audiences by the likes of Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and more in a three-film revival released between 1999 and 2008.
While the current Mummy release charts familiar territory for its A-list star, IndieWire‘s David Ehrlich calls the film “the worst Tom Cruise movie ever.”
“It stands out like a flat note on a grand piano. It’s not that Cruise hasn’t had misfires before (and between Rock of Ages, Oblivion, and [Jack Reacher], they’re happening at a faster rate), but The Mummy is the first of his films that doesn’t feel like a Tom Cruise movie,” he continues. “It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that it never could have been good. It’s an irredeemable disaster from start to finish, an adventure that entertains only via glimpses of the adventure it should have been. It’s the kind of movie that Tom Cruise became a household name by avoiding at all costs.”
After spending over three decades dazzling audiences across large-scale action-adventures on the big screen, Tom Cruise’s latest genre spectacle, The Mummy, is set to unravel in theaters this Friday. Movie critics, however, got a peek under wraps this week, as movie reviews for the blockbuster project debuted online Wednesday morning. The consensus? According to a vast majority of them, perhaps this romp should’ve remained buried.
EW’s Chis Nashawaty says “the story feels as stitched together as Frankenstein’s monster: a little bit of An American Werewolf in London here, a little Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade there, some Jekyll and Hyde as frosting,” adding that, while Cruise is the film’s “secret weapon,” the project ultimately “feels derivative and unnecessary and like it was written by committee (which a quick scan of its lengthy script credits confirms).”
The Mummy stars Cruise as Nick Morton, a globetrotting explorer who accidentally unleashes an unspeakable, ancient Egyptian evil into the world in the form of Sofia Boutella’s Princess Ahmanet, a four-pupiled, reawakened royal wreaking havoc on earth during her multi-millennia quest to find a mate.
Cruise boards the franchise at the top of what Universal hopes to mold into a successful worldwide cinematic universe, with subsequent entries planned to feature the Invisible Man (Johnny Depp) and Frankenstein’s Monster (Javier Bardem). It was previously brought to life by the studio throughout the 1930s and 1950s, with actors from Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney, Jr. lending their acting talents to the series; it was later popularized for contemporary audiences by the likes of Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and more in a three-film revival released between 1999 and 2008.
While the current Mummy release charts familiar territory for its A-list star, IndieWire‘s David Ehrlich calls the film “the worst Tom Cruise movie ever.”
“It stands out like a flat note on a grand piano. It’s not that Cruise hasn’t had misfires before (and between Rock of Ages, Oblivion, and [Jack Reacher], they’re happening at a faster rate), but The Mummy is the first of his films that doesn’t feel like a Tom Cruise movie,” he continues. “It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that it never could have been good. It’s an irredeemable disaster from start to finish, an adventure that entertains only via glimpses of the adventure it should have been. It’s the kind of movie that Tom Cruise became a household name by avoiding at all costs.”
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