The Mummy

Score:  C-

Directed by Alex Kurtzman
Starring Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, Russell Crowe
Running time: 107 minutes
Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  The Mummy is a reboot of the famous franchise as well as the potential start of a whole series of monster movies.  If this is the best they can do, though, any plans for a new series are DOA.  Tom Cruise headlines, and he's one of the best action actors we've got, but he's just not a good fit here and can't pull the rest of the film up.  There are admittedly a few good scenes, but everything's smushed together in such a generic, nonsensical (and ultimately boring) way that it doesn't matter.  Skip.


A pair of rogue military officers, Nick Morton (Cruise) and Chris Vail (Johnson), enter an isolated Iraqi village hoping to pillage artifacts, only to come under attack by insurgents.  An airstrike saves them, and also reveals a buried tomb.  The military calls in archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Wallis) to examine the find, and the team carries away a mysterious sarcophagus.  En route to England, a series of bizarre events causes the plane to crash; while Halsey parachutes out, Nick and Chris are apparently killed.  Except that Morton somehow wakes the next day without a scratch.  Jenny and Nick investigate the crash site, finding that the sarcophagus's inhabitant, Ahmanet (Boutella) has been resurrected and seems particularly intent on getting to Nick.  The pair desperately flee Ahmanet, with the help of some new friends, as they try to figure out what is going on - and how to put a stop to the supernatural threat.

The Mummy has a talented cast, but many of the roles are poor fits and the performances are adversely affected.  Tom Cruise plays the lead, as dependable an action star as there is.  However, he isn't nearly as good as usual here.  He is what he is at this point in his career; while he awkwardly attempts to add some humorous mischief to the part (at least early on), it just isn't a good fit and so his character isn't as fun as usual.  His partner in crime, Annabelle Wallis as Jenny, is even worse, unfortunately.  I haven't seen her in much else so I don't know if this is an anomaly for her, but Wallis's personality is so generic and bland, and even her basic reactions to situations so off, that she is essentially just a drag on the movie.  Russell Crowe is fine in a small role, but the part itself is mostly a distraction (more later).  Sofia Boutella comes out the best of the main cast, a convincingly creepy, menacing, but occasionally even seductive, villain.  Her success with the physicality of the role is a major reason for it.  Not much else to speak of, but Jake Johnson, normally a reliably hilarious comedian, just does not do a great job here with his role as a (temporary) sidekick.

The Mummy is a failure of an action-adventure film - not truly terrible in any one way, but successful only in a very few.  I haven't seen the old-school Mummy films, but I couldn't stop myself from comparing this to the Brendan Fraser-led version from 1999.  This version attempts the same goofy-serious split that the 1999 version succeeded at so well, but it fails pretty badly early on and essentially quits trying after that.  While The Mummy is the definition of a monster movie, it's still important to have some connection with the characters and plot.  Unfortunately the characters are hampered not just by poor casting fits but also by lack of time to learn about them or reason to care about them.  It's just one action set piece leading to the next, by varying degrees of inexplicability.  Then a "universe" concept springs in the middle of the film, as Crowe's character, Dr. Jekyll (...), shows up as the man in charge of investigating monsters like Ahmanet.  This both doesn't really go anywhere yet also messes up any remaining focus in the movie.  While there are some reasonably entertaining scenes in the first half of the movie - the plane crash, Nick and Jenny's first encounter with Ahmanet in England - it all ends in a big, dull, predictable blockbuster finale.

***

The Mummy is a dud of a summer popcorn film, and is particularly disastrous as an attempted first step in a new monster movie "universe".  Usually the presence of Tom Cruise provides a decently high floor for the entertainment level of a movie, but even he can't save this.  While the remaining casting was even more middling (at best), the true fault is in the overall story, script, and directing (all of which can seemingly be blamed on Kurtzman, but I wouldn't be surprised if the studio brass had a hand in it).  They didn't find anything interesting to focus on, or even a particular tone or style, to separate itself from others or justify its existence.  The filmmaker tries to hide this (intentionally or not) by ramming all its loosely related components together and hoping that you won't think about it too much.  Well, I certainly won't be thinking about going to any sequels to this flop.




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Wonder Woman

Score:  A-

Directed by Patty Jenkins
Starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright
Running time:  141 minutes
Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  Wonder Woman is the highly anticipated debut film for the most famous female superhero, and it exceeds expectations.  For all intents and purposes, Gal Gadot is Wonder Woman, a beautiful, strong, feminine actress who owns this film just as she needed to.  There's plenty of fun action and humor, and even some intriguing exploration of larger issues than what's normally seen in this kind of film.  Highly recommended, all audiences.


On a hidden island, Diana (Gadot) is raised by her mother, Queen Hippolyta (Nielsen), leader of the island's Amazon women, and trained by General Antiope (Wright).  The Amazons continue to prepare for the eventual return of Ares, god of war, to Earth, when a plane crashes on their island.  Diana rescues the pilot, Steve Trevor (Pine), and takes him to the other Amazons.  They discover from him that the "war to end all wars" (World War I) is raging.  Queen Hippolyta prefers to leave mankind to its fate, but Diana sees the influence of Ares in the struggle and leaves the island with Steve to find and kill him.  Steve takes Diana to London, where he reports another discovery to his superiors: the Germans are developing a new, incredibly powerful and lethal chemical weapon.  However, the Allies are negotiating an armistice to end the war, and don't want to risk its success by launching an attack to destroy the new weapon.  Frustrated, Steve goes to Europe anyway with Diana and a small team.  Determined to destroy Ares and end the plague of war once and for all, Diana must first find her own strength in battle - and experience the very thing she hopes to end.

Wonder Woman has an impressive cast, and it is boldly led by its main heroine.  Gal Gadot provided audiences a glimpse of her Wonder Woman in last year's Batman v Superman, but here in her own movie she proves the brilliance of her casting and excellence in portraying the famed heroine.  In superficial terms, Gadot is perfect: she is as convincing, athletic and tough in battle sequences as she is beautiful.  However, she also inhabits and develops the character exceptionally well.  Gadot exudes  Diana's core goodness and strength naturally, but she also is no humorless stoic; she always counters her co-star's sarcasm, and frequently displays her own sense of fun, even mischievousness.  Somehow, Gadot's Wonder Woman is both a feminine ideal and yet also easily relatable.  Chris Pine is a lot of fun, too, as Steve Trevor, but for all his charisma, it's a testament to Gadot's presence that he is always playing second fiddle here.  The remaining roles are strictly supporting.  Diana's Amazonian family, played by Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen and others, is fine, as are Trevor's ragtag band of friends from the war.  Although the villains don't get a lot to work with, Danny Huston as Gen. Ludendorff and Elena Anaya as Doctor Poison are impressively menacing.

Wonder Woman is a very well done if mostly standard superhero film, but it also nicely incorporates some larger themes.  The film's first fifteen minutes or so serve as Wonder Woman's origin story, one much different than other superheroes' yet framed as a familiar mythological background.  The main story combines Diana's seemingly simple mission to destroy a villain with Trevor's determination to stop the chemical weapon.  In essence, Diana is trying to stop a fantasy villain of sorts while Trevor focuses on the practical - sometimes these efforts intertwine, and at others they clash.  There is plenty, though not too much, action, and most of it is well done.  Particularly good is Wonder Woman's debut battle - which contrasts a spectacular showcase of her unique fighting style with the grim but realistic setting of WWI trench and city battles.  The film also has a lot of humor - not quite at the level of Marvel's better films, but still fresh whether from Diana and Steve's banter or Diana's fish-out-of water introduction to 20th century London.

It is in London, the least action-oriented part of the film, where some interesting themes start to emerge.  As appropriate for the first major movie about a female superhero, there is commentary on gender roles.  This is not awkward, forced, or sermonizing, but rather comes naturally from the situation.  Diana is raised with all women - and thus women there take on all the roles of a society.  When she arrives in London she is shocked by other women's experiences, from work as a "slave" (her interpretation of a secretary) to subjugation with battle-restricting "fashion" wear.  Also at issue is war itself.  This is powerfully illustrated (cleverly combined with more gender commentary) when Diana rages at a group of old military generals for their seemingly noble but in fact cowardly efforts to secure an armistice at any cost.  It is also present in Diana's mission to destroy Ares, which she believes in turn will end war itself.  Here, the film unfortunately misses an opportunity to go against the grain of normal blockbusters with a much more subdued yet ultimately more powerful and shocking ending.  Instead we get the usual climactic battle - which is fun, but disappointing.

***

Wonder Woman is a very well made film, saving DC from a streak of critical flops.  More importantly it is a resounding success as a female-led superhero film.  The filmmakers neither cynically pandered to any particular audience, nor did they make a movie that was just like any other superhero film only with a woman as the lead.  It was potentially a very difficulty needle to thread, but the film created (thanks largely to Gal Gadot herself) a true heroine, a feminine character within a world just like Batman or the Avengers'.  For now I'm pulling up just short of a straight "A" score - due to its not embracing the clear opportunity it had for a powerful, unique ending as well as for some choppiness throughout the script (wasn't as smooth and consistent as Marvel has shown superhero films can be).  I may well upgrade this later, and hope to see it again in any case.  And by all means:  if you're looking for a fun film, Wonder Woman is far and away the best film of the summer so far.




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