“Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is a lot of things. It’s a great body horror movie with excellent visuals and excellent scares. But it’s also a disjointed mess with a beginning that would turn off many viewers and a plot that takes way too long to find its footing.
Directed by Lee Cronin, it stars Jack Reynor as Charlie, Laia Costa as Larissa, and May Calamawy as Dalia. Charlie is a journalist living in Cairo, Egypt with his wife Larissa and their two kids Katie and Sebastian, with a third along the way. One day Katie is kidnapped and goes missing only to turn up eight years later after a plane crash, wrapped in cloth inside a sarcophagus. Charlie and Larissa take her back home to Albuquerque, New Mexico and try to make sense of everything while Dalia, a detective, begins to investigate further.
Overall, the story is interesting; the problem is how the viewer is shown that story. The film keeps switching back and forth and so much of it feels like an exposition dump. The viewer is given puzzle pieces that while all fitting in the end, take away from the pacing of the film. It takes about 30 minutes for the film to really start going. And almost everything after that beginning is great nonstop horror.
I did end up enjoying the movie for the most part. While not terrifying, the movie is scary and especially gory. Some scenes are absolutely shocking in how disturbing they are. What ended up surprising me the most is that with all the amazing effects, the film’s budget was only 22 million.
The acting as well is pretty good. The parents give strong performances, and the child actors are giving it their all. The family dynamic wasn’t very strong in the film and definitely was not the focus. Dalia, the detective, is probably my favorite character with the actor giving the best performance of the film.
Another issue the film has is a lack of any sort of theme. There is no reflection or message for the most part besides vague hints at guilt. The movie essentially has nothing to say; an issue further exacerbated in the rather pointless ending that adds so little to the plot.
Disappointment is a word that comes to mind when watching the film. Yes, it was scary, shocking, and disturbing, but that’s all it was. And with a genre like horror that is, contrary to popular belief, thoughtful and heavily invested in showing us reflection of society, a film like “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” stands out as thoughtless. And while I was not disappointed in this regard, many might be when they find out this has nothing to do with Brendan Fraser’s “The Mummy” series.
Overall, I still had a good time with the film despite its heavily flawed nature. For those who thoroughly enjoy gory horror movies, this film is perfect for them. “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” gets a 7.3 out of 10.