Directed by Lee Cronin — Screenplay by Lee Cronin.
Given that more than a dozen movies about a mummified corpse coming back to life have been released over the years, including but not limited to the Universal Classic Monsters films, you can’t just name your movie The Mummy anymore without confusing audiences. To distinguish their latest film from the multiple other films called The Mummy — including the iconic Boris Karloff-led original, the beloved Brendan Fraser-led action-adventure film from 1999, and the Tom Cruise-led 2017 film, which was designed to kickstart a shared universe of Universal Monsters (called the Dark Universe), which was cancelled as a result of that very 2017 film failing — producer Jason Blum suggested that they should put their writer-director’s name in the title of the film, despite Lee Cronin by no means being a household name, not even with many horror film fans. Cronin, however, did put himself on the map with his sophomore feature Evil Dead Rise, which was both a critical and box office success. Because I really liked his Evil Dead installment (and some pretty strong trailers), I was really excited to see his vision of The Mummy. Having now seen it, I can say that while there are things that I really liked here, this is a pretty significant step down from his aforementioned sophomore effort.
Following an effective opening prologue revolving around different characters, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy initially takes place in Cairo, Egypt, where we meet Charlie Cannon (played by Jack Reynor), an American TV reporter, and his family, consisting of his pregnant wife, Larissa (played by Laia Costa), and their children Katie (played by, first, Emily Mitchell and, later, Natalie Grace) and Sebastian (played by, first, Dean Allen Williams and, later, Shylo Molina). That morning, while Katie is outside playing in their garden, she is abducted by a mysterious woman, who offers her sweets. When Charlie realizes she is gone, it is too late, despite his running through the town during a sandstorm, in the hope that he could save his daughter.
When they meet with local law enforcement, including English-speaking detective Dalia Zaki (played by May Calamawy), they are desperate to find their daughter, but despite their protests and the local investigation, she isn’t found. Eight years later, however, the family receives the news that they have hoped for, but the details shock them. Katie has been found alive. But she was found mummified inside a basalt sarcophagus in the wreckage of a plane crash. Though she is in a bad way and in a catatonic state, Charlie and Larissa are quick to bring their daughter back home to Albuquerque, New Mexico. As they try to reunite their long-lost daughter with the rest of the family, they gradually start to realize that something is seriously wrong with their daughter, as she starts exhibiting violent and disturbing behavior.
At the end of the day, the best way that I can describe Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is to say that it is equal parts The Exorcist and Evil Dead, but disguised as a ‘Mummy film,’ and that it disappointingly fails to rise to the heights of the films from which it clearly draws inspiration. In addition to clearly taking a lot from The Exorcist and Evil Dead, the film also, in certain shots and scenes, resembles everything from Hereditary to Bring Her Back. It has the tongue-in-cheek nastiness of Evil Dead, both concerning the dialogue and the gross violence on display, and the similarities to The Exorcist are also clear as day, and some of these are related directly to how things wrap up for certain characters. But despite definitely being relatively unoriginal, the fact that there are several familiar aspects or elements in the film isn’t really the problem here.
As I mentioned earlier, the film starts really well with the mysterious, gripping, and scary prologue, and the subsequent initial scenes with the Cannon family are also pretty good. It is emotionally gripping, like it should be. Rather, the problems start with the pacing and length of the film. It is way too long. I feel like you could cut between 20 and 25 minutes from the film and improve it significantly. It felt to me like the film is, for too long, stuck in this waiting mode, as the film slowly builds up to the climactic action. There are solid scenes in Egypt where we follow Calamawy’s character investigating things that work relatively well, but the filmmaker also thought it necessary to have the Charlie character have his own investigative subplot involving an archaeology professor played by Mark Mitchinson. That subplot is a lesser and much more stale version of what Cronin has got going on in Egypt, while the family is being put through the wringer in their family home in Albuquerque. I also thought it was structured strangely, and one of the effects of this is that you feel like the parents in the film are completely oblivious to what is happening to their other children.
The film eventually goes into an over-the-top climactic final act that goes full Evil Dead, but by the time it fully gives itself over to that style, you may be tired from how slow it moves and how long it feels. Fans of those films will likely get a lot out of these scenes, which are pretty effective, even though they are not as memorable as the carnage that Cronin put in his own Evil Dead film a few years ago. Nevertheless, it has the twisted lines of dialogue, the grossness, and the extreme violence that fans of the franchise will eat up. Even though it is mostly present in the climactic final act, there are glimpses here and there of the kind of shock horror that Cronin put into his previous film, including in an uncomfortable (and thus effective) pedicure scene, and Cronin makes good use of extreme close-ups of eyes, mouths, and teeth. At the same time, though, there are also a small handful of moments that are arguably unintentionally funny, and, although it works in certain scenes, Cronin overuses the split diopter-style shot to such an extent that it is distracting.
I thought the cast was mostly solid in this, but I do have to say that one performance consistently took me out of the film. Although I’ve thought he was pretty good in everything else that I’ve seen him in, I was thrown off by Jack Reynor’s performance here. It’s not all his fault. I think he is pretty clearly miscast. He doesn’t really have chemistry with Laia Costa, and you never for a second buy that he is a father of three. Not only does he look way too young both before and after the time jump, but he doesn’t do a good enough job of communicating his character’s desperation, his guilt, or his love — or wasn’t directed to. You mostly just see him make this one wide-eyed stare over and over again. That said, the writing of the characters is also quite bland, so, again, it isn’t all his fault.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is an overlong mixed bag. While there are things to enjoy here (e.g., the mythology introduced in the film, the over-the-top Evil Dead-esque horror action, and individual scares), it is also just so messy, in terms of structure, pacing, and length, that it fails to live up to its potential. Although there are certain weaknesses here that take away from the experience of watching the film, as has been pointed out, I will still say that I didn’t have a bad time with this film. It’s nowhere near as good as it could’ve been, but it’s also not so messy that you can’t get something out of it, if you’re into the Raimi-inspired mayhem it goes for. But if you’re hoping for a movie in the style of the more beloved Mummy films, then you may be shocked by how much Lee Cronin struggles to separate the world of his sophomore feature from the “original” vision of his latest film. It is more of an Evil Dead and The Exorcist film than it is a Mummy movie. It’s an odd blend, but it may work for some if they can tolerate its challenging pace.
5.5 out of 10
– Review written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 