UNWRAPPING THE TOM CRUISE MUMMY REBOOT REMAKE

The Tom Cruise Mummy has hardly a bandage at all YEAR: 2017

Failing to point out similarities that new movies share with old ones is like ignoring a familiar face who says hello... After bumping right into you...

So it's important to mention that The Tom Cruise MUMMY is, in its core, almost exactly like AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, arguably the greatest werewolf picture ever and, directed by John Landis, centers on two doomed vacationing hikers: one gets killed by an initial attack, the other injured: The latter has ominous, foreboding dreams while his not-very-pleasant-looking dead friend appears randomly, offering spooky yet cordial reminders that he, the living, must also die to lift The Curse... 

Snake Eye poster... with no Tom

After a little while, the same thing occurs concerning two American soldiers in Iraq. Tom Cruise and his reluctant buddy — a whiner so saturated with fevered sarcasm you would think he'd remain the comic relief sidekick (like John Hannah in the 1999 version) against Tom's Indiana Jones-like determination to make digging up artifacts a number one priority... Soldiering be damned...

Of course there's a beautiful girl. Actually, two. One is the ingenue and the other, as you probably already know by the promotions, is our title antagonist: an ancient and lustful, tattoo-faced black widow who literally gets inside old Tom's head. He even says at one point: "She's in my head."

Leading to surreal moments where the director attempts combining a Mind-Trip-Thriller Sub-Genre to the Action-Fantasy Mainline — along with a few violent battle scenes with the frantic pace of THE WALKING DEAD, WORLD WAR Z or any sinewy CGI zombie outing, it's impossible to distinguish who or what should be feared most since they all look alike, and do the same thing: Attack and Attack, and Attack some more.

MummyScore: *

The plot-line, having to do with our flawed hero attempting to reverse this particularly personal Mummy's Curse, is contrived, forced. And then there's Russell Crowe, who narrates the prologue set way, way back during The Crusades, only to return as... get this... a doctor named Henry Jekyll in the present time. Funny thing is, the surrounding characters are actually surprised when it's revealed what he's been... Hyding all along...

Crowe's entire role is a banal, superfluous distraction to one of the most unnecessary reboots ever. And it's no surprise that, being a Tom Cruise vehicle, when it comes down to it, everything's about him. Like in the first MISSION IMPOSSIBLE — what had been an eclectic ensemble becomes a one man show. It's more like THE DADDY than THE MUMMY. Or perhaps THE DUMMY since he makes all the wrong decisions, and is hardly someone to root for or care about. In fact, along with the pouting love-interest, no one on board has anything to say, or add to the overall mindless void of it all. Somewhere, though, Brendan Frasier is smiling. Perhaps imagining himself as the new Maverick in the upcoming sequel to... Okay, now we're pushing it...