The Mummy

THE MUMMY (Alex Kurtzman, 2017)

In THE MUMMY Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and his partner Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) are soldiers of fortune traversing Iraq while also looking for antiquities they can resell on the side. They get into a firefight with some insurgents and are bailed out with an airstrike by the military. Those bombs also reveal a long-hidden tomb for the Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who was buried alive far away from her homeland because of the evil she sought to bring into the world. Nick and Chris would be happy to grab what they can from the site, but archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) notes the importance of this find and persuades them to remove Ahmanet’s sarcophagus for further examination.

Supernatural forces under Ahmanet’s control crash the plane transporting them all back to London. Although Nick appears shockingly unharmed after plummeting from the sky, it’s determined that the revived Ahmanet has cursed him and intends to give physical form to the ancient god Set through him. Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe), who leads a monster hunting squad named Prodigium, considers Nick the bait for destroying Ahmanet.

THE MUMMY is intended to launch the studio’s Dark Universe film series that will unite Universal Pictures’ classic monsters in a manner similar to the Marvel Connected Universe and DC Extended Universe. THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is in the works, and films featuring The Wolfman, Dracula, and The Invisible Man will all presumably follow, not to mention MUMMY sequels if this one performs well enough. While this makes sense in terms of asset and brand management, the creative benefits are questionable, particularly in this first entry. THE MUMMY struggles to assert its own necessity beyond being the foundation for several other movies.

THE MUMMY credits three people for screen story and three others for screenplay, which suggests the script was worked over quite a bit. The film itself confirms as much. THE MUMMY often feels like it is trying to cobble together several ideas with different origins and purposes. The film lacks consistency as it attempts to do right by the franchise, the monster, and the star. It is not the unqualified financial success the studio would want for Dark Universe’s introductory offering, but worldwide returns suggest that THE MUMMY has done well enough to justify more chapters. Creative missteps can always be fixed with retconning. The mummy could refer to Boutella’s character or someone else in the film who encounters the supernatural. Regardless of who you consider to be the monster, the mummy gets shortchanged as an attention-demanding presence. THE MUMMY shows signs of being tailored for Cruise, but all that does is make even more of a hash of the story. It’s no secret that commercial films are products; THE MUMMY just seems more engineered for getting to market without a distinguishing quality.

Like the version of THE MUMMY with Brendan Fraser, this one is doing an Indiana Jones imitation of sorts. Cruise’s character, like everyone else, is poorly defined, which makes his self-centered rogue come off as unlikable or dull despite the actor’s efforts to turn up the charm. The grim Dark Universe name does not extend to THE MUMMY’s tone. Director Alex Kurtzman plays up the goofy and lighthearted nature of the material, particularly as Cruise gets tossed around like a rag doll. Films like this should be fun. Although THE MUMMY isn’t good, its lack of self-seriousness helps this compromised film play better.

Grade: C

Let's Be Cops

LET’S BE COPS (Luke Greenfield, 2014)

Let’s be honest. It’s unfair for a policeman’s killing of Michael Brown and the subsequent protests to be in mind while watching LET’S BE COPS despite the studio having the bad luck for the release date to coincide with what’s been happening in Ferguson, Missouri. This broad comedy aspires to capitalize on the success of 21 JUMP STREET and its sequel in having goof-ups bumble through confrontations with bad guys. Current events notwithstanding, it may have been a miscalculation to base jokes on abusing the power of the badge.

After graduating from Purdue longtime friends Ryan (Jake Johnson) and Justin (Damon Wayans Jr.) moved to Los Angeles with dreams of making it big. Now thirty years-old and still floundering they must consider that maybe it’s time to move back home to Columbus, Ohio. Ryan doesn’t seem to do anything in particular other than holding onto the anger that an injury cheated him out of a professional football career. Justin is gainfully employed as an assistant at a video game company, but when his pitch for a policeman game gets dismissed outright, he questions whether his time there is finished.

Attending a college alumni party confirms their feelings of being washed up. To make matters worse, they mistake the masquerade for a costume party and come dressed as police officers. While still in the uniforms as they walk home dejected, Ryan and Justin discover that people think they are real cops. They have some fun for the night pretending to be lawmen and even manage to do some good when interrupting mobsters shaking down the owners of a local restaurant.

What was supposed to be just one night of them playing policemen gives Ryan a tremendous rush and purpose in life. He buys a car and dresses it up to pass for an official law enforcement vehicle. He studies YouTube videos to learn the lingo and becomes obsessed with bringing brutal mob leader Mossi Kasic (James D’Arcy) to justice. Although Justin is reluctant to continue the charade, he goes along with Ryan’s scheme.

NEW GIRL co-stars Johnson and Wayans play variations on their wayward sitcom characters, making Ryan and Justin lovable losers as long as they are busting on each other or demonstrating how out of their element they are as cops. Their best comedic moments utilize the actors’ chemistry and characters’ ineptitude, such as their exaggerated reading of a text conversation with the aim of subduing squabbling sorority sisters. LET’S BE COPS offers likable leads in a middling comedy as long as it sticks to handling nuisances and minor incidents.

The film gets off track rather severely when it begins treating Ryan and Justin as though they are real law enforcers. Ryan becomes fixated on cracking an organized crime ring and gets drunk on the authority he forgets he doesn’t really have, yet LET’S BE COPS treats his conduct as a cute affectation than pathological behavior. The tone flips from silly to serious as the film gets invested in solving the case. The climactic scene takes on the perspective of a first-person shooter game not unlike something Justin wanted to create at his day job. As procedural and action elements overtake LET’S BE COPS, the comedy either becomes a secondary concern or acquires uncomfortable qualities. Someone going on a power trip while donning police blues isn’t harmless in any scenario, but it can be funny when the character is blundering through the situations. LET’S BE COPS loses sight of this crucial distinction.

Grade: C