A friend recently commented on this mug I was trying to sell the damn thing off during a garage sale and we got to discussing The Mummys merit as a Universal classic monster. He liked The Mummy. I, on the other hand, was never a fan. While I certainly appreciated Karloffs transformation in the film, I found the overall story execution slow and clunky. The sequels that followed were never that good either, in my opinion. The rest of the Universal monster lot? Loved em. For any sort of Mummy fix (and, yes, Ill keep capitalizing Mummy he deserves it), I always turned to Hammer Films, or The Monster Squad, or that segment of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie with Julianne Moore.
This quick reflection on The Mummy during the garage sale had me revisit a news story recently. The one about Universal dusting The Mummy off for yet another reboot this one written by Jon Spaihts, the guy who scripted The Darkest Hour and Prometheus (before Damon Lindelof came in). Spaihts says his take has the potential to be scary and epic. Im sure it does. But I say: Hey, Universal why dont you let some of your other classic monsters get a shot at getting a reboot?
The Mummy has had his chance under the direction of Stephen Sommers and Rob Cohen. Over the course of a decade, those two introduced The Mummy in a high-adventure Indiana Jones-esque fashion. Loud, kinetic and brimming with FX, this was just the sort of Mummy fun whether you liked it or not that worked for moviegoers and accurately reflected where big blockbuster moviemaking was at. Had another director tried to gone for a slow burn, old school creature feature Mummy flick in 1999, I dont think it would have been as lucrative.
Audiences were less cynical and more innocent back in 1932, when Karl Freunds original Mummy was released. I think they rolled a bit easier back then with the notion of Egyptian curses, ancient romance and dusty ol corpses than todays crowd who needed all of those elements crammed within the breathless whiz-bang action and humor Sommers injected into his remake. In other words, I think Sommers made the concept of the Mummy a bit more palatable for todays movie-going masses, as silly as the outcome became.
The new Mummy franchise ran its course. A reboot really is not necessary.
Let me make it clear, however, that Im thrilled Universal isnt terrified to mine their classic monster library again especially after The Wolfman remake. It just seems rather unfair, though, that we will get another Mummy picture while the long-mooted The Creature from the Black Lagoon wades through development hell. And lets not forget Universal also has David Goyers redo of The Invisible Man somewhere as well as new interpretations of Frankenstein with Guillermo del Toro and Doug Jones playing the monster and Dracula in the works. Id much rather seen those projects reinvigorate the studios classic monster stable than have Universal re-enter an Egyptian crypt and unleash yet another curse.
