‘The Mummy’ Remake: It’s Okay But Saying That Feels Like Cheating On Brendan Fraser’s

Let’s just clear the air so this isn’t awkward for either of us during this review. The newest The Mummy has a strong premise that could have had a better execution cast-wise (which I’ll come back to). When we compare the revival of this series to the one Brendan Fraser put on the boards (back in 1999), it isn’t as well rounded. You know it. I know it. Cruise knows it, but that check he got cut for the movie don’t know or care. We open up with Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and Sgt. Vail (Jake Johnson), who are a part of the military, going rogue. They’re scoping out a village hoping to run it for antiquities for sale on the black market. It makes sense for these characters to be scoundrels (yeah I said scoundrels) but there’s something about a couple of white dudes in the Middle East / foreign lands running the jewels on ancient culture’s artifacts that makes me cringe. Perhaps that was the point of the character. Nick is charmingly selfish, a liar, and will kindly screw over others for his own benefit. Through his bumbling (such a parent word to use) a hidden tomb is revealed. A tomb that Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) had been looking for before Nick stole her map to run the jewels for himself.

Jenny figures out this tomb isn’t what it appears to be in terms of traditional burials of important Egyptian figures. It’s more of a prison for this would-be queen and once Nick raises the sarcophagus from its imprisonment all hell breaks loose. A curse is set upon Nick and we are runn…