Visakan Thiruchelvam

Honestly so much of this film is shot in abject darkness (obviously to cut the graphics budget - I could do the graphics MYSELF if it's going to be in pitch black and noone could see enough of it to discern facial features), that I've really lost interest in watching it. The premise is good. I love the idea of a female mummy and Sofia seems an ideal casting choice. Generally Tom Cruise makes solidly entertaining movies. So they've got the project on solid footing. But seriously they wasted their budget in actors if the film is shot in the absence of light for such a high percentage of the film. As far as I'm concerned Tom and the cast were voice actors for this film. It seems almost a cringeworthy technique to manage the reveal of the appearance of the mummies this way. Instead of building up the mummy from bones and rags to a figure, they decided to hide the mummy in pitch blackness until the time comes to reveal it. It's such deplorable laziness and shows contempt for the paying audience. To force them to sit through almost the entire movie just to get a glimpse of the mummy they've been waiting to see the whole time. I'm halfway through the movie and I still have not seen anything remotely close to a mummy, though she's been active for a while. The discovery of the mummy's tomb, the raiding of the crusaders' tombs, the scene in the alley, the scene at the crash site (both of them) all with next to zero light. I honestly don't know what in heck I'm watching. I don't know whether cheer, or recoil because I can't make out who I'm actually watching onscreen. For a movie with a great premise, and a movie I was committed to watching because I'm a fan of the previous mummy movies, this is such a disappointing release. How you stuff up a movie with a box office gold lead and a stunning sexy mummy that fits the bill, I'll never understand. There is no way they saved as much money as the box office and the studio lost by choosing to blanket such a huge chunk of the movie in pitch blackness. I never thought I would appreciate simple things like candlelight, lanterns, flash lights and light reflective mirrors. But since the previous movies conveyed the sense of darkness with those techniques and this movie may as well have been in Braille, I really feel bad for taking such techniques for granted.

The exact same movie, same sequence of events, almost the same attack sequences. I'm only halfway through and I don't think I've seen such a bold rehash of a first movie offered as a sequel. The actors are different and just enough of the minor details have been changed. But essentially I can predict the next action sequences because I remember the first movie. The only major difference is there is zero A or B list actor presence. At least the first had Sam Jackson and LL Cool J. They didn't bother going even that far this time.