Opening in theaters on April 17 is ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy,’ written and directed by Lee Cronin and starring Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, Shylo Molina, Billie Roy, and Verónica Falcón.
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Initial Thoughts
Let’s get some things straight right away: Brendan Fraser is not in ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.’ Tom Cruise is not in ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.’ And, oddly enough, there really isn’t a mummy in ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.’ Although this movie, produced by James Wan‘s Atomic Monster banner and Blumhouse Films, eschews the action-adventure strains of the Fraser and Cruise variations, its return to the IP’s horror roots is still missing the classic image of a hulking, bandaged corpse slowly shambling after its victims.
In its place is a plot loosely linked to the Egyptian monster of yore, as well as a bunch of scenes and ideas either pulled from or inspired by other horror movies, ranging from the classic ‘The Exorcist’ to the more recent ‘Bring Her Back’ to Cronin’s own ‘Evil Dead Rise.’ But even though the film is nasty, viciously bloody, and wildly bonkers in its third act, a sloppy, strung-together script all but buries ‘The Mummy.’
Story and Direction
TV reporter Charlie Cannon (Jack Reynor) and his doctor wife Larissa (Lola Costa), along with their young son Sebastian and daughter Katie, are living in Cairo, Egypt, while Charlie is on assignment there. But then Katie vanishes after being lured to the edge of their backyard by a mysterious woman (Hayat Kamille) – a woman glimpsed in the film’s prologue when something stirs in a sarcophagus on her family’s property.
Eight years later, the Cannons have long since returned to the U.S. and live in Albuquerque, where Charlie is a local news producer. Little daughter Maud (Billie Roy) has since been born as well, but no trace of Katie has ever been uncovered. Then the Cannons get a call from Cairo: Katie has been found, alive, wrapped in bandages in that same sarcophagus from the opening, after the plane it’s being transported on crashes.
But as the Cannons soon discover, Katie barely resembles the sweet little girl who disappeared nearly a decade ago. Her skin, nails, and hair desiccated, her body gnarled and contorted, and Katie herself incapable of speech, her survival hardly seems like a miracle. And in fact it’s not: before long, Katie begins behaving in bizarre, dangerous ways, as a malignant presence exerts its influence on the Cannons and threatens to destroy the family.
‘The Mummy’ is one of those movies in which the audience quickly gets so far ahead of the characters that the whole narrative rapidly turns increasingly ludicrous. From the start, it’s clear that something is horribly wrong with Katie; the doctors who let her go home should have their licenses revoked, and she has no business being home so soon. Yet as grotesque as she is, it takes a long time for the Cannons to wake up.
After one particularly brutal outburst of violence, Charlie suggests that it might be time to send Katie elsewhere for round-the-clock professional care. ‘Do you think I’m incapable of caring for my daughter?’ asks Larissa, almost comically unreasonable in light of current events. The whole middle act is a rinse-repeat of Katie doing something violent or gross, with the family simply waiting for the next incident.
Charlie finally investigates the circumstances of Katie’s disappearance with the help of an Egyptian detective (May Calamawy) who was initially on the case in Cairo. Meanwhile, things get progressively worse at the Cannons’ place, leading to a gruesome scene involving coyotes and an in-house wake that turns into a display of vomiting, blood, guts, and the lapping of embalming fluid – and still Katie remains at home.
There is some truly shocking gore in ‘The Mummy,’ and in fact the film is a kissing cousin aesthetically and visually to ‘Evil Dead Rise.’ Cronin is nothing if not mean-spirited when it comes to doling out the onscreen pain, and between that and a few creepy sequences in the house (which, we must note, is at least the third domicile we’ve seen on film this year with full passageways in its walls – what’s with the builders in these movies?), ‘The Mummy’ does have some schlock horror value.
Terrific sound design and a series of unnerving split diopter shots give it an added boost as well. But in the end, ‘The Mummy’ is too sloppily structured as a story for us to care about this family and its fate, and it also turns out – expository lore aside – to not really be a mummy movie at all, but another, all too familiar type of horror movie.
Cast and Performances
Jack Reynor is serviceable if rather bland as Charlie, the actor capable of either wide-eyed alarm or heavy-lidded shock. His everyman demeanor helps but his character, like the others, is too thinly sketched in to feel real. Reynor and Laia Costa as Larissa have zero chemistry as a married couple, while Verónica Falcón provides some comic relief as the family’s Abuelita.
We did like May Calamawy’s haunted detective, but the best performance is by Natalie Grace as the older Katie. Laden with unsettling prosthetics, making death-rattle sounds in her throat and throwing her body around like a graduate of the Regan MacNeil school for possessed children, Grace is creepily effective and actually hard to look at for long.
Final Thoughts
Look, there have been loads of mummy movies, and many of the older ones are rather dull quickies in which a stuntman (or Lon Chaney Jr. or Christopher Lee) shuffles around in dirt-caked wrappings and makeup. The more recent attempts channel an Indiana Jones vibe, so it’s nice to see the property done as a proper horror movie again, and credit to Cronin for at least trying to give it a new spin to some degree.
But it’s still not the scary mummy movie we’ve been hoping for, and in fact it’s another kind of horror film entirely once the bandages fall away – which is ironic, because early viewers apparently think it’s going to be a new Brendan Fraser entry. Yet despite its visual flourishes and admittedly effective jolts of blood and guts, ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ doesn’t pay enough attention to its story or characters to make its overlong, two-hour-and-15-minute runtime feel like anything but an eternity.
‘The Mummy’ receives a score of 55 out of 100.
What is the plot of ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’?
The young daughter of a journalist disappears into the desert without a trace – but eight years later, the broken family is shocked when she is returned to them, as what should be a joyful reunion turns into a living nightmare.
Who is in the cast of ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’?
- Jack Reynor as Charlie Cannon
- Laia Costa as Larissa Santiago-Cannon
- May Calamawy as Detective Dalia Zaki
- Natalie Grace as Katie Cannon
- Emily Mitchell as young Katie
- Verónica Falcón as Carmen Santiago
- May Elghety as Layla Khalil
- Shylo Molina as Sebastián Cannon
- Billie Roy as Maud Cannon
- Hayat Kamille as the Magician
List of Mummy Movies
- ‘The Mummy’ (1932)
- ‘The Mummy’s Hand’ (1940)
- ‘The Mummy’s Tomb’ (1942)
- ‘The Mummy’s Ghost’ (1944)
- ‘The Mummy’s Curse’ (1944)
- ‘The Mummy’ (1959)
- ‘The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb’ (1964)
- ‘The Mummy’s Shroud’ (1967)
- ‘Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb’ (1971)
- ‘The Awakening’ (1980)
- ‘The Mummy’ (1999)
- ‘The Mummy Returns’ (2001)
- ‘The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor’ (2008)
- ‘The Mummy’ (2017)
- ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ (2026)
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