(Sommers, after his two Mummy movies, directed Van Helsing, which would have further expanded the series.) But it manages to both be heavily indebted to the Indiana Jones films while also being a fun, rip-roaring thrill ride of its own.
#The mummy movies series list movie
The Mummy (1999) was not made in a vacuum: Universal was hoping to revive its 1930s-era horror movie characters into a big franchise. The lesson should not be “Build out shared universes.” The lesson should be “Make movies that are fun.” With the summer movie season approaching its halfway point, what would be nice is if studios like Universal take a lesson from the two biggest creative successes so far: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. Putting the cart before the horse didn’t work for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, and the jury’s out on whether it’ll work for The Mummy, though the early reports (and the film itself) aren’t encouraging. It’s only because of the MCU that we have a DC Extended Universe, or a would-be six-film franchise about King Arthur, or an ever-expanding series with Jekyll, the Mummy, the Bride of Frankenstein, the Invisible Man and more. The continuing success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been arguably one of the most important points of mainstream cinema in the 21st century, for better or worse. Henry Jekyll this functions as a statement of purpose much more than any of Cruise’s derring-do ever could. After the Universal Pictures logo, the Dark Universe logo makes its first appearance on the big screen, leading into a narration from Russell Crowe as Dr. No, this Mummy is all about building out the shared universe of characters known as the Dark Universe. (One image that’s hard to forget, and is repeated here: the mummy’s roaring face appearing at the front of a massive sandstorm.) Largely, this new Mummy exists not to weave a rousing adventure yarn or to embrace the old-school horror of the 1932 original. Thus, there are elements of the Indiana Jones films in this new Mummy, which means that there are also more than a few elements of the ’99 Mummy here. Nick’s friendship with his fellow soldier of fortune Chris (Jake Johnson) feels similar not only to Indy and his trusty sidekick Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), but to the ’99 Mummy, with Rick O’Connell’s contentious relationship with the shifty Beni (Kevin J. He has a push-pull relationship with archeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) that’s sometimes reminiscent of the failed romance in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (at one point, as in the 1989 film, Nick and Jenny wind up in an overturned tomb, with only a few inches of breathable air below a vast ocean of water). Cruise plays Nick Morton, a military man/treasure hunter, an inverted version of Harrison Ford’s hero.
However, the new movie does try to echo the Steven Spielberg-directed films in fits and starts. (It’s no coincidence that last week’s exciting Wonder Woman movie, a welcome throwback to the upbeat comic-book adventures of old, takes place a hundred years in the past outside of brief bookends.) So perhaps another complete Indiana Jones-like version of The Mummy would have been impossible. But it’s hard for the kind of spirit evinced by the Indiana Jones films to be replicated in the present.
The new version of The Mummy, directed by Alex Kurtzman, takes place primarily in the present day, excluding a couple of exposition-heavy flashbacks. Unfortunately, the 1999 film did a much better job of paying homage to Harrison Ford’s adventurer.ĭirector Stephen Sommers‘ take on The Mummy arguably made more sense in placing its hero, Rick O’Connell, as an Indiana Jones type the film takes place in 1926, roughly a decade before the first three Indiana Jones films. Tom Cruise may not be the first choice to play an Indiana Jones-esque explorer, but it’s hard not to make the connection, especially considering that this isn’t the first stab at a Mummy remake from Universal a 1999 version, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, owed a great debt to the Indiana Jones series.
The 2017 film may be a revival of the iconic horror movie character from Universal Pictures, but that question suggests something more in line with the Indiana Jones films, as does the fact that Cruise’s character is a treasure hunter at his core. “Where’s your sense of adventure?” is a question that Tom Cruise poses multiple times in The Mummy.
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