Darkish Universe

Originally published TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2017

I just finished watching Universal’s second reboot of the Mummy and the launchpad of it’s Dark Universe. This movie is “ish”. Not “ish” as in the censored radio version of what Van Helsing was but rather as what has been reported, this movie keeps changing as Dr. Jeckyll from actionish to horrorish making it hard to know what to expect. Not in the good way but more in the “we just won’t abide by conventions of either genre because it’s easier to tell this story.” Overall, the film is ok at best and tolerable at worst. If I was to compare this to Dracula: Untold, I would choose Dracula as the superior film and start to the Dark Universe.

Tonality is the biggest flaw in this movie. From the very beginning, as great as an actor as Tom Cruise is, something in his performance in his first scene, did not convince me he was smart ass military adventurer thief. Military adventurer thief absolutely, the guy has done plenty of action movies to prove that, the smart ass part really took me out of it. Much has been written on how this was made more like an action film instead of a horror film. Not only was this the case, but it also tries (to its detriment) to throw in some predictable comedy. This is done through the character of Chris Vail. Jake Johnson is a great actor with good comedic timing but his lines come at either cliche moments or inopportune times which distract from whatever action is taking place. There’s a scene where the protagonist Nick Morton keeps thinking he sees Vail and eventually makes his way to him, inside a restroom. After they get the exposition out, Vail reveals they are in the women’s restroom! He then runs out of there and goes outside for an scaryish action scene. The filmmakers had to have aware of the similarities if not ripping off between Vail and Jack Goodman (of werewolf fame). The protagonist’s buddy dies a strange death and then comes back to life as a zombie that only he can talk to and see. If Vail was used in life for flat comedy, in death he is used as a tool for exposition, since he is now under Ahmonet’s spell.

Ahmonet happens to be the Mummy and the villain of this film. When the trailer was releasedm, I was bothered by the look of this “mummy” since we all know what Mummies in pop culture have looked like, fully bandaged with maybe the face exposed. Instead, this version just looked like one of the pale long haired girls in the generic paranormal and haunted house movies of late. Then there was the two iris thing that I still don’t understand. After watching the film and after recalling that the mummy didn’t have that much screen time in the original, this was no longer a bid deal. In fact, I appreciated that Ahmonet did look more monsterish and worked her way up to looking like the girl from The Ring. However, the mummies in this film are more reminiscent of zombies both in the way they look and the way they move. Ahmonet herself, gets her energy by sucking the soul/breath/ essence from her human victims. A zombie that feeds like Dracula (or the vampires in Underworld). Technically mummies, vampires and even Frankenstein belong to the undead, yet this one still seems to be mixing, like the overall movie does. Bringing it back to Underworld, the way the villains feed to come to power as well as the ending for the protagonist seem to be lifted from the film. In fact, it seems this film tried to be like Underworld mixing monsters and action/fighting scenes. Except, Underworld did it correctly by telling a cohesive story and not overstepping in either of the genres.

There were a couple random things that stood out that needed more clarification and would have improved this movie a bit. How is it that Ahmonet can control animals, especially in a weakened state? There’s a pivotal scene in the film where she controls a random spider that then somehow controls a person. This was probably the biggest issue I had story wise. Without any context, this scene just seems like a cheap shortcut to solve a huge problem. Secondly, how is it that the Visual effects team spent so much time and effort creating several (in my opinion unnecessary) mummy/zombies but we could not get a decent Mr. Hyde transformation? The brief scene in the film only teases the audience and hopefully Dr. Jekyll gets his own movie where it is explained why he didn’t go full out Mr. Hyde, maybe after he stops taking his medication for a while, Mr. Hyde comes out in full. Right before this transformation/skin pigment change scene is an expository scene where Dr. Jekyll reveals what he plans to do with Nick. He explains why and what he plans to do but the scene is just brushed over and doesn’t stand out when he is talking about something drastic. The scene is dull and subdued, possible saving any explosion for the fight scene that is to follow but maybe not.

I went in with low expectations for this film given how Universal has treated their monsters and was not disappointed. I probably wouldn’t watch this film again even though everyone did a great job acting. There was a scene that got me giddy where Dr, Jekyll is walking through his lab and we see a vampire skull and an obvious Creature From the Black Lagoon hand like in the original. It will be interesting to see how the ending and this film as a whole plays out and if it affects the upcoming films. Hopefully the next ones work on their pacing and tone and figure out what genre they most want to be in. I will watch the next ones on deck because I’m a fan but I hope none of the other monsters have the double iris, what is that ish?