Lee Cronin's The Mummy Review: A Bloated, Unfunny Horror Reboot
Warner Bros has insisted on branding their new hard R horror film as Lee Cronin's The Mummy, a pretentious move that has sparked online mockery. This is partly to distance it from Universal's planned revival of the 1990s-2000s franchise, as emphasised by Blumhouse's recent social media post clarifying that Brendan Fraser is not involved. It also aims to capitalise on the current trend of promoting directors as auteurs, following Warner's success with filmmakers like Ryan Coogler and Zach Cregger.
An Unearned Auteur Crown
While it's refreshing to see a studio highlight a director over a star—unlike the Tom Cruise-led Mummy film that flopped—this approach feels like an unearned indulgence. Cronin, an Irish director with only two prior films (The Hole in the Ground and Evil Dead Rise), is visually talented but has been prematurely crowned a genius. His take on The Mummy is absurdly overlong at 134 minutes, tonally unsure, and, crucially, not very scary. Despite being attributed to one person, the film feels heavily influenced by many others, making it familiar rather than fresh.
A Familiar Creepy Kid Plot
The story follows Katie, a girl who disappears in Cairo and is found eight years later in a sarcophagus after a plane crash. Her parents, played by Jack Reynor and Laia Costa, bring her home to New Mexico, where she is diagnosed with locked-in syndrome. However, the creepiness of her abduction—by a malevolent woman using her daughter to groom Katie with candy—is undermined by rubbery prosthetics and laughable parental reactions. As Katie's teeth crunch and skin tears, the film increasingly resembles an unofficial Evil Dead sequel, especially in its exhaustingly loud, gore-filled finale.
Missing Humour and Logic
Cronin lacks Sam Raimi's wicked sense of humour, taking the film too seriously. When moments of goofiness do appear—such as daughters mimicking Linda Blair's Regan or a funeral turning into a splatter fest—they feel discordant. The central mystery, hinted at by the tagline "what happened to Katie?", has a disappointingly literal answer: she became the mummy. This undermines any hope for a surprising or substantive payoff. The film prioritises gloopy gore over character development, suspense, or logic, ignoring rational questions that would arise in its chaotic world.
Visual Ambition vs. Script Weakness
Cronin's ambition is evident in the film's epic, Imax-sized feel, which harkens back to when monster movies were treated as high-craft blockbusters. It often looks stunning, with inventive moments like a scorpion attack and torn vocal cords. However, this visual flair cannot compensate for the lack of a terrifyingly good script, a common issue in horror. The Mummy is more expensive and grander than Universal's recent, smarter monster reboots like The Invisible Man or Abigail, but it fails to avoid the obvious, feeling like a rehash of creepy kid horrors like The Exorcist or The Omen.
In summary, Lee Cronin's The Mummy is a visually ambitious but flawed horror reboot that suffers from excessive length, tonal confusion, and a lack of scares or humour. It releases in Australian cinemas on 16 April and in the US and UK on 17 April.
