The Mummy film review ★★★★★

If you do go to see The Mummy this week – if you fancy being disappointed, or forget that there are other films in the cinema, or have been recently lobotomised and fancy an undemanding evening – then spare a thought for Tom Cruise, who turned down the lead role in the 1999 version. At the time, he probably thought he’d dodged a bullet. It turns out that there was always a Mummy-shaped missile with his name on it: it just took 18 years to hit. Now that’s a curse.

It really takes the uninspired crud of the 2010s to make the uninspired crud of the 1990s seem like gold. Brendan Fraser (who has since gone on to star in a lot of ‘WHY HOLLYWOOD WON’T HIRE HIM’ clickbait) was at least the loveably lunkish hero for a loveably lunkish popcorn movie. Almost two decades have passed since then, enough time for a whole generation to be born, and Tom Cruise somehow looks even younger and fitter than Fraser did back in the day. But his Mummy isn’t loveable – it’s forgettable, if not quite hateable. See you back here in another 18 years.

Cruise plays Nick, a military man and adventurer who jumps and tumbles through Iraq, rescuing relics from war zone destruction and smuggling away others for cash. When he and fellow rogue Chris (Jake Johnson) unearth a tomb with the help of a map belonging to archaeologist Jenny (Annabelle Wallis), they accidentally liberate the undead Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) into the unsuspecting world.

A handful of millennia ago, Ahmanet was supposed to become ruler of ancient Egypt before it turned out that rule would instead transfer to her father’s second family. None too pleased, she murdered them and made a bid-for-power pact with the dark god Seth, but ended up foiled and mummified alive.

Three thousand years haven’t done anything to improve her mood: Nick’s plane is downed by a summoned pestilence as he’s trying to transport Ahmanet’s coffin out of the country. It’s not the end of the movie for him, though. The Mummy has kept him magically alive so he can play his role in her nefarious world-domination plan, a plan involving superhero-type fisticuffs and CGI zombies.

That’s Nick’s terrible misfortune. Playing the part, Cruise isn’t allowed to duck out of The Mummy in the first act. That’s his.

Read our feature on the enduring (but wasted) appeal of The Mummy franchise.