My thoughts on the new Mummy Trailer: I'll say right out that both the original 1932 Mummy and the 1999 Brendan Fraser remake are two of my favorite films; the 1932 version as classic monster horror and the Brendan Fraser version as an epically fun and old fashioned love letter to pulpy treasure hunt adventures.
After the disastrous Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, however, I thought the Mummy as an overall series was good to put to rest and I was satisfied emotionally, thinking they had covered all their bases with the slow creepiness of the old fashioned horror in the original and the fast paced romance and adventure of the remake and even the more explicit horror of the Hammer versions.
On the same note, I love Tom Cruise and his movies like the Mission Impossible series, Edge of Tomorrow, Minority Report, and some of his early work like A Few Good Men.
When I heard that Universal was bringing the Mummy and Tom Cruise together, though, I had to pause with some interest. Its Tom Cruise, its the Mummy, and its in modern day and played straight horror. Okay, this could be interesting. Let's wait for the trailer and check this out.
Well, the trailer has arrived and...meh?
It starts off with a well choreographed exploding airplane scene but the tone just feels off. It feels like a mixture between Mission Impossible and Transformers, with a little bit of Clive Barker thrown in (which is ironic as Barker was originally hired to work on a version of The Mummy in the early 90s before the Brendan Fraser one came out. But from what I've seen of Barker's work though, none of it comes off as "This is Ancient Egypt" to me.
There were a couple of weird sound effects in that airplane sequence though: the first being the sound of one of the pilots being hit by the locusts crashing into the windshield. I'm not sure, but wasn't that sound effect a death cry used in Goldeneye 64 from the 90s? Second, while Tom Cruise's scream is a bit weird in general, he can use it to great effect like in Mission Impossible or Edge of Tomorrow, but here? It sounded really weird. Almost forced in a way. Then again, that would make sense because Cruise has hung off the side of a plane in flight and propelled down the largest building in the world so pretending to be in a plane crash wouldn't seem that scary.
The Mummy's tomb and the Mummy herself played by Sofia Boutella, who I'm dying to see in Star Trek Beyond, have a weird tone as well with the tomb looking like something out of H.P Lovecraft rather than an Egyptian tomb, and the Mummy kind of looking like the villain from The Ring.
The film itself is meant to serve as an entry in Universal's new franchise spin on their classic Horror Monsters with all of them coming together ala The Avengers or the Justice League, which is brought up in the trailer via Russell Crowe's appearance as Dr. Jekyll. While Crowe's casting as Jekyll kind of makes sense, I can't help wondering what he'll look like as Mr. Hyde. But every time I think of that, it keeps bringing up images of the Mr. Hyde from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a bad but corny and fun (to me) film and that just comes off as really bizarre.
Then again, this is only the first trailer and I don't want to judge a book by its cover It will be interesting to see what kind of "straight horror" scares and atmosphere they bring to the film and, seeing behind the scenes footage, I could tell the cast and crew were having a great time, especially Tom Cruise, and that's usually a good sign. I've seen Cruise in some bad movies but even then, he's always entertaining and is usually the best part of a movie. Even if the movie itself is bad, I know I'll enjoy watching him in it, guarenteed.
For now, I'm being cautiously optimistic until future trailers and the actual film comes out, but for this one trailer, all I can think is "eh, I don't know about this."
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