Tom Cruise's The Mummy panned by critics

Warning: spoilers ahead!

The first reviews are in and unfortunately for Tom Cruise the critics aren't holding back when it comes to his latest flick The Mummy.

While fans were divided on whether a reboot of the franchise would work in the first place without Brendan Fraser, critics have panned the film, describing it as "dull", "unfunny", "monstrous", "awful", "disappointing", and even labelling it "by far the worst movie Tom Cruise has ever made". Ouch! #PrayforTom

The movie, which sees the 54-year-old actor play raider Nick Morton and also stars Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, currently has a pretty dismal low score of 26% on Rotten Tomatoes and the comments about the reboot aren't much better!

David Ehrlich from IndieWire called it an "irredeemable disaster from start to finish" in his scathing review writing:

"All of this is to say that not only is The Mummy the worst movie that Tom Cruise has ever made, it’s also obviously the worst movie that Tom Cruise has ever made — it stands out like a flat note on a grand piano. It’s not that Cruise hasn’t had misfires before (and between Rock of Ages, Oblivion, and Jack Reacher: Never Stop Never Reaching they’re happening at a faster rate), but The Mummy is the first of his films that doesn’t feel like a Tom Cruise movie.

"It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that it never could have been good. It’s an irredeemable disaster from start to finish, an adventure that entertains only via glimpses of the adventure it should have been. It’s the kind of movie that Tom Cruise became a household name by avoiding at all costs."

Julia Alexander from Polygon wasn't much nicer, with one of her biggest issues being Universal using the film to introduce their new "Dark Universe".

"Even putting aside the basic filmmaking issues the movie has, where The Mummy suffers is trying to kickstart an entire universe in one film. If the first act of the movie was dedicated to setting up the mummy’s origin story and explaining how this monster reemerged, the rest of it was spent trying to explain why she was only a vessel for a much bigger story focused on a secret organisation.

"The Mummy wants to tell a story about extraordinary beings with unbelievable powers and grotesque physical transformations; more to the point, The Mummy wants to tell a story about struggling with being exceptional and the downsides that accompany that realisation."

Gizmodo reviewer Cheryle Eddy questions why the Mummy Ahmanet, played by Sofia Boutella, has to be a "literal man-eater" and can't just be a strong, female lead.

"However, this plot point [whereby Ahmanet needs to find a man-husk to honour a deal] means Ahmanet spends the entire movie chasing after Nick—when she’s not restoring herself by sucking the life out of every male who crosses her path, that is. Yes. She is a literal man-eater. What is the point, exactly, of having the Mummy be a woman if she requires a man to make her powers complete? “I will be your queen,” she promises Nick. But... why can’t she be a powerful, wicked, awesomely destructive monster who also just happens to be female?"

While Variety's Owen Gleiberman takes aim at Tom's character.

"The problem at its heart is that the reality of what the movie is — a Tom Cruise vehicle — is at war with the material. The actor, at 54, is still playing that old Cruise trope, the selfish cocky semi-scoundrel who has to grow up. The trouble is that Cruise, at least in a high-powered potboiler like this one, is so devoted to maintaining his image as a clear and wholesome hero that his flirtation with the dark side is almost entirely theoretical.

"As Universal’s new “Dark Universe” (of which “The Mummy” is the first instillment) unfolds, I wouldn’t hold my breath over which side is going to win, or how many more films it will take to play that out. It’s not just that there isn’t enough at stake (though there isn’t). It’s that the movie doesn’t seem to know how little at stake there is."

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Pete Bradshaw from The Guardian adds: “This has some nice moments but is basically a mess, with various borrowings, including some mummified bits from An American Werewolf in London. The plot sags like an aeon-old decaying limb: a jumble of ideas and scenes from what look like different screenplay drafts. There are two separate ancient “tomb-sites” which have to be busted open: one in London and one in Iraq. In the end, having encouraged us to cheer for Tom Cruise as an all-around hero, the film tries to have it both ways and confer upon him some of the sepulchral glamour of evil, and he almost has something Lestat-ish or vampiric about him. Yet the film really won’t make up its mind. It’s a ragbag of action scenes which needed to be bandaged more tightly.”

Yikes, let's hope the box office will be kinder than the critics!

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