I’m sure that, by now, we have all seen the trailers for the upcoming reboot of Universal’s The Mummy franchise. While I’m not here to provide speculation as to what might or might not happen during the movie, I would like to provide a summary of what we know so far from what has been revealed to us through the trailers. I would also like to point out some parallels that I have noticed between this remake and the 1932 and 1999 versions of The Mummy.
While the first trailer did not reveal very much information about the movie, other than the fact that Tom Cruise needs to do something about the way he yells, we do learn three facts that make this movie immediately stand out from its predecessors: the movie takes place in the present day, seems to spend little time in Egypt, and of course features a female in the role of the mummy. Conversely, both the ’32 Boris Karloff and ’99 Brendan Fraser versions took place entirely in Egypt with the latter being set in the past, and also feature men in the starring role as the mummy.
The second trailer, which came out a week ago, starts to reveal a little more information about what we are in store for; and it seems like this movie is going to be quite different compared to what we have seen in the past attempts at a Mummy movie. Now, keep in mind, the basic formula will be the same no matter what: people will stumble across an ancient tomb and will unwittingly awaken a mummy that was sentenced to death who will proceed to unleash death upon the modern world. However, there seem to be some things going on in this new film that will be taking the Mummy franchise in a new direction.
The first thing we see in the second trailer is Tom Cruise running from masked man shooting at him with automatic rifles and RPG’s, because we can’t get a Tom Cruise movie without seeing him run from something. An explosion blows open the tomb and that is how the mummy is discovered; no explorers digging for the tomb or anything like that. In fact, it seems like they weren’t even looking for a tomb in the first place. But I am getting a little too close to the realm of speculation here so I will move on to the next thing that is revealed to us. After re-watching the plane crash, we learn that this time around the mummy, instead of wanting to kill the main character, wants to use him for something. What that something is has not been revealed yet, but I assume it will have something to do with fulfilling an ancient prophecy or some such.
That’s basically it, the rest is stuff that is all within the realm of the familiar: the mummy used to be a priest(ess) who committed an unforgivable crime (this time looks like she killed someone), there will be plagues unleashed on a modern world, including a nice little nod to the sandstorm scene from the ’99 Mummy with the villain’s face forming in the sand, and there will probably be some romance plot shoehorned in there between Tom Cruise and Annabelle Wallis.
This movie seems to have more in common with the ’99 film than the ’32 version, which may not necessarily be a bad thing, but I would love to see a true remake of the Boris Karloff version we have all come to love. However, I am not blind to the fact that gone are the days of a creepy, atmospheric horror film that will go on to spawn a franchise. We also have to keep in mind that Universal is trying to reboot a shared cinematic universe of the classic monsters, and they have to produce something that is action packed which will make a lot of money. I just hope that there will, at least, be a little bit of fan service for fans of the original, not just a remake of the ’99 version.
The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise and Sofia Boutella will be released in theaters on June 9, 2017.
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