Review: ‘The Mummy’ returns as new Dark Universe franchise

MANILA, Philippines — Universal Pictures sets to start a brand new franchise called "Dark Universe," beginning with the action adventure film remake, “The Mummy.”

The movie's plot basically reminisces the 1999 film starring Branden Fraser wherein the main characters stumbled upon an ancient Egyptian tomb of an evil mummified princess then accidentally unleashing its evil upon the world for which they need to figure out a way to stop to monster.

The archetypes of the three main characters are also similar. There is the charming, slightly rogue lead male hero, Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) accompanied by Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser), the comedic sidekick, Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) and Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah), and then, there is the curious intellectual female love interest played by Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) and Evie Carnahan (Rachel Weisz).

As announced, this will be the first movie in Universal Pictures's brand new franchise of monster movies called the "Dark Universe."

“The Mummy” director, Alex Kurtzman, revealed he will re-launch the classic movie monster franchises including “Dracula,” “Frankenstein,” “Bride of Frankenstein,” “Van Helsing,” “The Wolf Man,” and “The Invisible Man,” which is said to be to be starred by Johnny Depp.

On its surface,”The Mummy” is a decent action/adventure movie with a bit of horror elements like jump scares and bringing the dead to life or anything that involves the mummy, Ahmanet (Sophia Boutella), being the stereotypical mummified evil princess who needs to suck the life out of people in order to regain her powers.

Some heart-stopping moments will also catch the audiences' attention. These include Russell Crowe revealing the true nature of his enigmatic character, Dr. Jekyll, and the organization that he leads.

Cruise and Wallis bring their charm in this what is supposed to be a common monster fighting, making "The Mummy" a zombie-raising action adventure film similar to what Fraser and Weisz did. Cruise, as always, will be doing his own stunts.

The movie shows Cruise in his usual stunt highlights that will most likely make the audience doubt whether what he did was a real stunt or CGI like the plane crash scene, where Cruise and Wallis struggle to survive a free-falling C-130.

This scene was actually part of the extended trailer, where we can see the cast and crew actually filming up in the air in Zero G, for 64 times to get the best shot.

Nonetheless, despite having a Hollywood A-lister as the lead character, the movie still draws mixed reactions and reviews, ranging from lack of originality and the issue of having two female characters who appear to be lost in their own world.

“The Mummy” opened in Philippine cinemas on Wednesday. It is distributed by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures.