Video review: "The Mummy"

More studios are now into the whole world-building thing, notably with the Marvel and DC comics cross-overs, where superheroes have solo films and then team up for group projects. The latest “universe” to hit the big screen is horror-based, as Universal Studio rounds up a bunch of its classic movie monsters and mixes them up.

In theory, I’m all for it. Dracula, the Wolfman, Invisible Man, Frankenstein, etc. having throw-downs in between teaming up? Sounds awesome. But in practice the enterprise is off to a shaky start.

First up is “The Mummy,” starring Tom Cruise in a film that borrows heavily from the Brendan Fraser/Rachel Weisz flicks that debuted almost two decades ago. (Well, technically “Dracula Untold” from 2014 was supposed to be the official start of DU, but the studio has since backed off of that owing to the film’s middling box office performance.)

Tossing an aging action star into what is essentially a remake doesn’t sound like a great idea, and Cruise does his level best as Nick, a soldier/scallywag who’s more interested in treasure hunting than doing his duty. He gets picked by Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), the revived spirit of an Egyptian princess/sorceress, to be the vessel of the reincarnation of the death god, Set.

Their relationship is an energetic mix of smoochy/stabby, which triggered some recollections of past girlfriends.

Annabelle Wallis plays Jenny, an archeologist who teams up with Nick in between ardent prostrations of her attraction to him. Things move along with the usual assortment of big action spectacles and a liberal helping of CGI special effects. Russell Crowe turns up fairly late in the game as a certain doctor with… temper issues.

The movie’s fun at time, but terribly disjointed and half-baked. Marvel and DC spent years germinating their franchises, and based on this film the Dark Universe needs more time in the cooker.

Bonus features are quite good. There’s a feature-length audio commentary track with director Alex Kurtzman as well as actors Boutella, Wallis and Jake Johnson, with the obvious glaring omission of Cruise. He does appear in a 1-on-1 conversation with Kurtzman.

Additional extras include deleted and extended scenes, seven making-of featurettes and “Ahmanet Reborn Animated Graphic Novel,” with more about her descent into the monstrous underworld.

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Review: "The Mummy"

“The Mummy” doesn’t sound like a particularly good idea: pairing up an aging action star with a creature feature staple that’s been shambling around in one form or another since the 1930s.

This reboot of the franchise doesn’t do anything particularly new or exciting, though it works up a fair amount of sweat getting there. It’s definitely in the mold of the Brendan Fraser/Rachel Weisz romps, which placed an emphasis on digital effects, humor and light horror.

The role of soldier/treasure hunter Nick definitely falls outside of Tom Cruise’s groove: likable good guys with a scallywag twist. Here it’s all scally and no wag.

The girl keeps telling him he’s good guy down deep inside, but then he does things like flee from the mummy in a van, leaving her behind. But no, she insists, remember when we were on the plummeting plane and you gave me the only parachute?

“I thought there was another one,” he confesses.

This refers to one of the film’s more memorable scenes, were Nick goes down in a plane crash and wakes up in the morgue writhing inside a body bag, not a scratch on him. It seems he’s been selected by an ancient Egyptian princess to be his “Chosen One,” who will become the vessel of Set, god of death, bringing about a reign of evil upon the Earth. In the meantime, the curse keeps him from dying.

Considering how her betrothed keeps rejecting her, running away and stabbing her with stuff, you’d think a smart she-mummy would just go off and choose someone else for the honor.

Sofia Boutella plays Ahmanet, the mummy. She’s visually arresting but not particularly scary. She starts off as a twisted bug-like skeleton wrapped in bandages, and gradually gains strength and flesh by kissing people and sucking out their vital essence, which in turn adds them to her growing army of zombies.

Her skin is an ashy gray riddled with etched markings, while a few bones pop out of her wrappings. Most arresting are her eyes, which have double irises.

Annabelle Wallis plays Jenny, an archeologist who had a fling with Nick and now considers him a waste of her time. It’s an odd, mismatched pairing, almost as if they split Indiana Jones into a couple and made each half resent the other.

Jake Johnson plays Nick’s wingman, Vail, the sort who’s always urging him to take the safer path, and his advice is never heeded. And Russell Crowe pops up as a very polite doctor with a mean streak.

You may have heard “The Mummy” is the first picture in Universal Studio’s “Dark Universe” project, an attempt to revive all their classic monsters -- Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, Dracula, etc. -- and bind them together in a shared world like comic book superheroes.

I’m all for it, but based on this movie they’re off to a shaky start. Director Alex Kurtzman is a seasoned writer/producer marking only his second stint behind the camera. He lacks visual flair, and has an unfortunate tendency to shoot the action from oblique angles so we don’t get the full impact of the gruesome beasties.

The script, credited to Christopher McQuarrie, David Koepp and Dylan Kussman, borrows liberally from other movies. There’s a fight inside a truck lifted straight out of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and there are plenty of visual cues from other mummy movies, such as the creature’s face appearing out of a sand storm. Also an ongoing postmortem conversation with a friend a la "An American Werewolf in London."

“The Mummy” isn’t a bad movie, just a disjointed one. They should’ve left this one buried a little while longer until the time was ripe.

Review: "People Like Us"

"People Like Us" is a tearjerker, and is pretty straightforward about it. I don't have an issue with movies that don't pretend to be something other than what they are. Where I do have a problem is when they aren't successful at it.

To wit: no tears of mine were jerked by this movie.

Speaking of jerks: "People Like Us" is filled with them. At some point during the film I kept thinking, "Wow, I really hope there aren't a lot of people like them in the real world." If there are, this is one sad, bitter little globe we're riding as it hurtles through space.

This wannabe-weepy drama is about a young jerk who is the son of an old jerk who up and dies, leaving young jerk with only bitter memories of old jerk. That, plus a shaving bag filled with $150,000 in cash and a terse note instructing him to deliver it to a single mother who turns out to be the sister he never knew he had.

Young jerk, whose actual name is Sam, is in a tough spot because he could really use the money himself. His gig is "corporate bartering," which means buying up overstock of various goods and sundries and trading it for something else. Except Sam bartered a little too fast and loose, and now the feds are breathing down his neck about some rotten tomatoes, or something.

(Quick aside: the federal inquiry is instigated by an unhappy client -- the one with the tomatoes -- and the investigator starts calling Sam and his boss the very same day it's reported to tell them they're being investigated. That's a pretty responsive bureaucracy.)

Anyway, rather than telling the woman, whose name is Frankie, the whole deal and plopping the money down, Sam start following her around, and also her 11-year-old son Josh. He does said stalking while driving his father's fire engine red 1972 Mercury Marquis convertible, a great flaming beast of a car, which somehow does not attract anyone's attention.

Soon Sam has ingratiated himself into their lives, becoming a father figure to young Josh and a support system for Frankie, who's a recovering alcoholic working as a bartender (a Hollywood fabrication, if ever there was one).

The problem with this plot is that it's one of those stories that pivots entirely on the fulcrum of the One Big Lie. An untruth is told -- or as in this case the truth is withheld -- and the rest of the movie turns into an exercise in waiting around until the moment when everything is revealed. So the only real surprise is in seeing how extreme the reaction to the truth will be. (In this case, it's over the top.)

The screenplay is by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Jody Lambert, who inform us this was "inspired by true life." Kurtzman, a TV veteran, directs with little sense of rhythm. The movie turns into a push-pull of characters coming together, then pushing each other away, then back again. It feels like a collection of encounters rather than a knitted whole.

The cast seems a little too perfect for their own good. Chris Pine as Sam brings little to the table that we haven't seen from other rogue-with-good-intentions characters. Elizabeth Banks plays Frankie with more success, as a tough woman putting up a good front over her nagging fears that she's a terrible person and a worse mother. Both are made-up to look scruffy and well-worn, but in a gorgeous Hollywood sort of way.

Michael Hall D'Addario is convincing as Josh, using spot-on facial expressions to show how he reacts to the adults around him with disdain or enthusiasm, depending on what mood strikes. Kids that age are like a combination safe, and few parents get it right more than once in a while.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Olivia Wilde have underwritten roles as, respectively, Sam's mom and girlfriend. They're composed less as flesh-and-blood people than as tools to facilitate Sam's emotional journey -- even if they have to behave illogically to do so.

"People Like Us" is the sort of story that would have worked better as a tiny-budget indie film with actors you never heard of. It feels like a meal that's been jazzed up with too much flimflam and unnecessary seasoning, instead of concentrating on blending a few key ingredients well.

Rather than making the audience sad, it makes us feel sad for it.

2 stars out of four