The Mummy – Blu-ray Movie Review

Tom Cruise stars in this new version of the legend that has fascinated cultures all over the world since the dawn of civilization: The Mummy. Thought safely entombed deep beneath the desert, an ancient princess (Boutella) whose destiny was unjustly taken from her, is awakened in our current day. Her malevolence has grown over the millennia and with it come terrors that defy human comprehension. From the sands of the Middle East through modern-day London, The Mummy balances wonder, thrills, and imagination. This is the first installment in the Universal Pictures “Dark Universe” series which will feature some classic celluloid monsters from the early years of cinema.

This movie is supposed to be the cornerstone film for what Universal calls the “Dark Universe”; basically a reimagining of the famous Universal Monster films of The Mummy, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Invisible Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Unfortunately, this film throws in Dr. Jeykll (Crowe) and a badly miscast Cruise. Cruise plays his character with such an unredeeming quality that you almost hope he dies in the end, but alas, he lives and a sequel if likely.

You see very little of the titular character and when she appears, it is a pretty unimpressive CGI creature. The film tries to cover too much ground setting up the “universe” and not enough time developing the characters. I never felt Ahmanet was ever a real threat to Cruise. How unfortunate that this film is more poorly written than the Brendan Frasier series. At least those ones were fun. And did anyone else feel that Cruises’ sidekick (Johnson), a re-animated dead guy, was a direct rip-off from American Werewolf in London? I have a bad feeling about the upcoming dark universe. This mummy film shows no respect for the dead.

Picture quality is generally very good without artifacts or pixelization. Colors and contrast are good too, though some of the night scenes are a bit too murky. For example, it was hard to see what was going on when Ahmanet kissed her first victims in the swamp. Sound was dynamic and punchy, especially when the plane goes down in the first half of the movie.

The movie relies heavily on CGI, including 98% of the mummy. I have complained about how CGI just doesn’t exhibit the organic feel of say, a Boris Karloff, and this film does nothing to change my mind about excessive use of digital technology.  The Blu-ray contributed to natural skin tones, but the film itself did not strike me as being vibrant with color or super intense whites and inky blacks.

Included are:  a digital copy of The Mummy, Deleted and Extended Scenes, Cruise & Kurtzman: A Conversation, Rooted in Reality, Life in Zero-G: Creating the Plane Crash, Meet Ahmanet, Cruise in Action, Becoming Jekyll and Hyde, Choreographed Chaos, Nick Morton: In Search of a Soul, Ahmanet Reborn Animated Graphic Novel, Feature Commentary with Director/Producer Alex Kurtzman and Cast Members Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, and Jake Johnson.