Stephen Sommers
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Whether it’s the clear inspiration of the untouchable classic The African Queen , the unavoidable flavor of any Indiana Jones entry, a surprising amount of similarity to Stephen Sommers’s The Mummy , or even the shocking number of recognizable beats and concepts from another Disney theme park ride that was turned into a movie.
Worse, while the film’s rollicking adventure is often reminiscent of the Indiana Jones films and 1999’s The Mummy , its mythology is largely a rehash of 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl , another movie based on a Disney theme park ride.
Also along for the ride is her dandy brother McGregor (a very game Jack Whitehall), whose “I better not get dirty on this grand adventure” energy is so evocative of the sibling character in “The Mummy” that Whitehall should tithe half of his residuals directly to John Hannah (“Jungle Cruise” owes a lot to the spirit of that late ’90s hit, though its way of paying homage tends to be more in the vein of “distractingly bad CGI” than “vivid location photography”).
Those hoping for something akin to the 1999 The Mummy or Romancing the Stone should be suitably thrilled by the comparable chemistry between Johnson and Blunt, always emitting the type of will-they-or-won’t-they vibe that makes them such a fantastic onscreen pair.
It's reminiscent of Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz in The Mummy , in that you fully believe everything they go through together, including their frustrations with one another, which makes the bond they eventually form much more emotionally satisfying.
It even borrows its central dynamic from 1999’s The Mummy , as a brother-and-sister duo of academics enlist a rogueish adventurer to help find a lost corner of civilisation.
Aquaman (2018)
Directed by James Wan
influenced by The Mummy (1999)
Dialogue Visuals Characters Plot
At its best, Aquaman channels family-friendly action adventures, with Mera and Arthur's argumentative back-and-forth being particularly reminiscent of Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraser's chemistry in 1999's The Mummy (the new movie even manages to insert a desert set piece in among the underwater adventures).
Scenes in the Sahara—where Aquaman and Mera jump out of a plane for seemingly no reason—meant to be like “Indiana Jones” ends up feeling like something much cornier akin to Brendan Fraser’s “The Mummy.”
Instead of a brooding mess of muddled deconstructionism, Aquaman just wants to be a light-hearted swashbuckling adventure flick in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean or 1999’s The Mummy .
Y acertaron: James Wan logró su cometido al robarse, de Ant-Man 2 , el humor, la idea de un universo escondido y de una mamá guerrera perdida (vean el traje de Kidman y el de Pfeiffer); de Black Panther la mitad del argumento, la batalla entre hermanos y la idea de una sociedad escondida con pistas de superioridades raciales (más allá del argumento de Geoff); De Power Rangers lo ridículo de sus villanos; de Uncharted los pequeños puzzles de dudosa complejidad y, de The Mummy , la estética aventurera del desierto; de Thor: Ragnarok el atrevimiento de una estética neón insolente y de Pacific Rim el diseño de un Kaiju que, también, toma mucho del Smaug de Tolkien en su forma de hablar (con una sorpresiva Julie Andrews detrás del doblaje).
If you don’t take it too seriously, “Aquaman” has a variety of delights: Momoa is a natural star, and his charisma makes Arthur appealingly goofy; Arthur’s relationship with the more straitlaced Mera is often funny and brings to mind “The Mummy” franchise from the late 1990s; and the underwater world that director James Wan creates is detailed and impressive, if you can accept that gigantic seahorses are creatures of war.
It’s sort of like The Mummy , though we need a John Hannah.
More akin to that film than its ghoulish predecessors of the same name -- most notably 1932's "The Mummy" with Boris Karloff as the title character or Hammer's 1959 remake starring Christopher Lee as the old guy in wraps -- this remake's many striking similarities to "Raiders" seriously undermine its efforts before it ever gets a chance to get going.
"The Mummy" of the title is not a silent, shambling mass of bandages but, in a nod to the 1932 Boris Karloff masterpiece of the same name, a human figure obsessed with bringing his lover of 3000 years ago back from the grave.
Despite having the same title as the 1932 Boris Karloff flick, The Mummy is only a remake in the broadest sense of the word.
1932's The Mummy cast Karloff as Im-ho-tep (alias Ardath Bay), an ancient Egyptian prince brought back to life.
This year, that film is "The Mummy" a loose-as-a-goose remake of the 1932 Universal horror classic.
Frustratingly, certain elements are there. Another inspiration was Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy films, in terms of the two leads. You could entirely imagine Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz as Luke and Charlotte in another space and time, albeit with the tweak of being siblings rather than a romantic pairing.
Without giving anything away, González’s Esme reminds me of The Mummy’s Ardeth Bay, played by Oded Fehr.
Guy Ritchie's Fountain Of Youth consciously tries to muscle in on Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Stephen Sommers' The Mummy and Uncharted (the games).
What you may have noticed from the trailers alone and what becomes all too apparent in the feature is how closely The Mummy apes the Brendan Fraser film series.
Once the action shifts to an overcast London, The Mummy sporadically taps a vein of Gothic horror the last version of this property never approached; when Boutella’s vamping villainess first rises from the dead, creaking and croaking back to life, it’s in the boggy shadows of an overpass, infested with ravens.
The Mummy’s bandages unravel to reveal Sofia Boutella as the sinister Princess Ahmanet, Universal’s sexiest shrink-wrapped stalker to date (after Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee and Arnold Vosloo, so the competition is admittedly thin).
It’s in these scenes that The Mummy crackles with the kind of pulpy energy that elevated Stephen Sommers’ swashbuckling 1999 version; Johnson and Cruise have a fun rapport, and the film isn’t shy of poking holes in Cruise’s larger-than-life on-screen persona.
For now we’re cursed with “The Mummy,” a messy and muddled product lacking even the carefree spirit of the Brendan Fraser “Mummy” trilogy.
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Directed by Tommy Wirkola
influenced by Van Helsing (2004)
Themes Plot
With its anachronistic weaponry, horror themes, and references to well-known stories, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is most reminiscent of Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing.
Stephen Sommers's Van Helsing was almost universally panned upon its release in mid-2004, but looking back now, the rhetoric surrounding its critical impalement reads as oddly dated: Rex Reed, in a review typical of its broader reception, called it "a noisy, nasty and repulsive video game-slash-theme park haunted-house ride," all but heralding its arrival as the death of a more sensible cinema.
Last year's movie version of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter didn't exactly blow the roof of the multiplex, nobody really remembers The Brothers Grimm, and the less that's said about Stephen Sommers' insufferable Van Helsing experiment, the better.
Think Army of Darkness rather than Van Helsing , an R-rated version of the famous Brothers Grimm tale that’s a bit of ridiculous fun.
They were shooting for sort of a witch hunting “Zombieland,” an f-bomb riddled “Van Helsing” packed with comical anachronisms – a Bavarian forest past with witch trials, pump shotguns and primitive tasers, where bottles of milk have woodcut pictures of “Missing Children” on the labels.
For one, it's not outrageously dumber than its revisionist folklore-themed predecessors "Van Helsing," "Red Riding Hood" or TV's "Once Upon a Time," and it's far more goofily violent.
Odd Thomas’ self-aware expositional humor and translucent, shimmering CGI mayhem bring to mind Peter Jackson’s first shot at the major leagues, The Frighteners .
The borrowed plot, reminiscent of Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners, promises a mash up of pulp detective story and supernatural chiller, but in the clumsy hands of Sommers the result is an affected, self-consciously kooky film – curiously monotone from start to finish.
Most of the time, the movie carries the same kind of low wattage charm that Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" brought almost twenty years ago.
It's like a really lazy rip off of Peter Jackson 's " The Frighteners " if it was made 18 years too late.
There is a precedent for this kind of character (consider Kevin J. O’Connor’s role as the plucky sidekick in Deep Rising ), but Underwater is not a tongue-in-cheek film.
Underwater harkens back to such movies as Alien, The Abyss and Deep Rising, and it made me think fondly back to those titles.
On a scale of The Rift to DeepStar Six to Leviathan to The Abyss , I’d say Underwater is more like an Alien -infused Deep Rising more than it is anything else.
Yet the intermittent sequences of alien-like interference plague the otherwise sensible scares (and the abundance of swift jump scares); nothing works against the engaging costume designs, the low visibility and flashing warning lights, and the menace of looming death like unconvincing monsters (wandering down the path of films like “Leviathan,” “Deep Rising,” and “DeepStar Six”).
There are other scenes in the “chronobowl”—the junction between different parallel universes—where actors have jarringly fake faces that remind one of nothing so much as the infamously awful CGI Dwayne Johnson in 2001’s The Mummy Returns .
Even if you were to ignore what ethical boundaries it may or may not cross, the film can’t escape the fact that it frequently features rubbery VFX and CGI-recreations of moments and characters that make them look like The Scorpion King from Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy Returns .
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced The Mummy (1999)
Visuals Plot Themes
The golden glow that pervades the film -- gorgeous desert sunsets, gilded temples, warm torchlight -- isn't just symbolic of a longing for a J. Peterman fantasy world of biplanes, khakis, and worn leather satchels hiding priceless historical treasures; it's also indicative of a nostalgia for the great rollicking movies of the past, not just the obvious Raiders of the Lost Ark but also classic adventures like Lawrence of Arabia .
Writer-director Stephen Sommers wisely cast aside most of the silly horror flavor of earlier Mummys and has opted for a bargain-basement version of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Truth to tell, the new Mummy offers few legitimate frights.
A cross between a third-rate Raiders of the Lost Ark and a Dracula movie, The Mummy is definitely bad--downright awful, in fact.
Aspiring to combine the mystical epic adventure of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with the larger-than-life Love Never Dies impetus of "Dracula," this "Mummy" comes off more like the monster of Frankenstein--a rudimentarily-stitched aggregation of elements that comes alive in spite of itself.
Advance quotes from studio-friendly reviewers trumpet The Mummy as being an exciting thrill-ride in the tradition of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Sommers is a pure pop Stephen Spielberg but this chapter is less Raiders of the Lost Ark than Gunga Din, a pulp update of old Hollywood action movies.
This is only one of many references to everything from Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) to The Mummy (1932) to Invasion of the Saucermen to Gamera (1965) — with a lot of other nods along the way.
There's a kick to be had out of Frankweenie's remodelling of Mary Shelley's classic tale, as well as the many references to bygone scary cinema including Godzilla, Village Of The Damned, and The Mummy, among others, and such familiar faces as Boris Karloff, Vincent Price and "Igor".
Frankenweenie is a dark tale for kids – and possibly too much for the very young – but older kids and adults will appreciate the tongue-in-cheek scares, while buffs can play spot-the-references (which include everything from The Mummy, Godzilla and The Addams Family to Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff).
The black and white colour scheme is richly evocative of Frankenstein, but also other classic titles The Mummy, Gamera and, in one hilarious sight gag, Bride of Frankenstein.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced by The Mummy (1999)
Visuals Themes
As a result, the film itself feels less inspired by its predecessors than by such second-tier, CGI-laden Raiders knock-offs as Stargate, The Mummy and National Treasure.
This is the kind of thing a hacky Spielberg wannabe like Stephen Sommers would do in The Mummy franchise.
Jones since "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Indy has had amusing romances in between -- most notably, a fling with the ravishing Kate Capshaw from "Temple of Doom" -- but nothing has quite matched the magnetism of Allen and Ford, who bring a certain charisma to the notion of an unlikely romance that has routinely attempted to be replicated in similarly-themed action adventures like "The Mummy" and "National Treasure."
Dracula Untold (2014)
Directed by Gary Shore
influenced by Van Helsing (2004)
Plot Characters Themes
Some of these are likely beyond his control but they result in a generic vampire tale in the Underworld vein that comes closer to the infamous Van Helsing than a memorable re-interpretation of a legendary monster.
Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 Dracula was one of first films to recently paint the world’s most famous vampire as a tragic figure less bent on global domination (see the ridiculous Van Helsing for details).
Such as in 2004’s “Van Helsing” with the vampire hunter Hugh Jackman, sometimes Dracula is just a character within a larger story.
It had the odd effect of making me look back on a previous Universal monster mash, the miserable Van Helsing, with a degree of fondness; its Dracula was played with efflorescent wit by Richard Roxburgh, who knew how to do it — play with the accent as though it were taffy, and be more arch than a roomful of drag queens.
It’s no Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (and it’s a hell of a lot better than Van Helsing), but Dracula Untold can at least take credit for being a slick, quick, and almost willfully silly genre concoction.
Later he was to script Freund's other memorable directorial work, the delirious Mad Love (1935), and for James Whale he would script arguably the best of the Universal Horrors, James Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
It's definitely not on radar-par with other 30s shockers like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, et al… but it's right up there with them in terms of quality, content, and sheer spookiness.
The Wolfman (2010)
Directed by Joe Johnston
influenced by Van Helsing (2004), The Mummy (1999)
Plot Themes
A double-werewolf smackdown feels too much like " Van Helsing ," a scene in London is nearly wasted, and Geraldine Chaplin , as the old gypsy Maleva, is frankly no Maria Ouspenskaya .
We tolerated the Mummy remake because it was big and fun (the sequels and spin-offs less so), but we dismissed the chock-full-of-monsters Van Helsing for being ludicrous and silly.
Anthony Hopkins, in his second classic horror remake (he was Van Helsing in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula), pops up now and again looking malevolent, but Sir John is more a necessity of the plot than a legitimate character.
Unlike Van Helsing, however, they’ve learned their lesson about messing about with their successful formula of old and this new wolfman movie is based on the classic one – going so far as using Curt Siodmak’s 1941 screenplay as the template for this fresh go round.
Resting comfortably between the shrieking borefest that was Van Helsing and the lush gorefest of Sleepy Hollow, The Wolfman is not the unmitigated disaster that many were expecting … or even, let’s admit it, hoping for.
But compared to Van Helsing (2004), Universal's last exercise in high-decibel horror schlock, this is fairly satisfying, particularly a ghoulish episode in a Victorian insane asylum.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
Directed by Mike Newell
influenced by The Mummy (1999)
Visuals
The film's marketing campaign is highlighting connections with Pirates of the Caribbean and, despite the influence of a different director, the look and pacing are not dissimilar, although one could as easily compare Prince of Persia with Stephen Sommers' The Mummy .
Its bombastic $150-million budget is wasted on a garish onslaught of CGI that could have been stolen right out of 1999's " The Mummy ," while the script from Boaz Yakin (2004's " Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights ") and Doug Miro & Carlo Bernard (2009's " The Uninvited ") is a hodgepodge of whiplash-inducing storytelling, frumpy dialogue, and repetitive action scenes set in unattractive, yellow-tinted locations.
Tomb Raider wants to be Indiana Jones but ends up more The Mummy (the good Rachel Weisz one, not the dumb Tom Cruise one).
And like “The Mummy,” “Tomb Raider” finishes with a strong hint of more installments to come.
The old Tomb Raider movies are terrible, patently silly and campy without the saving self-awareness of, say, The Mummy.
To the movie: Tomb Raider does everything right that last year’s The Mummy did so garishly, painfully wrong.
When the film finally settles into its main conflict — between Lara and Mathias Vogel, an evil company man played by the always dynamic Walton Goggins — it becomes a fun hybrid of 1999’s The Mummy and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade .
Although Boris Karloff made his reputation with Frankenstein (1931) and further consolidated it with The Old Dark House (1932), The Mummy was his first starring role (after appearing in seventy films).
3. “The Mummy” (1932) Basically the Dracula story set in Egypt.
As "Frankenstein" director James Whale's yard man in "Gods and Monsters," he sympathetically, and touchingly, identified with the monster.
Best known for his script work on excellent movies such as Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, and Panic Room, I was hoping that this latest film of his, which he also directed, would be a return to form for him after the less than stellar Tom Cruise-lead The Mummy film back in 2017.
But veteran screenwriter and director David Koepp ( The Mummy , Mortdecai ) uses so many tired tropes of the Blumhouse genre — skittering shadows, warped lenses, sudden levitations — that he might as well be mining another movie he made with Bacon over 20 years ago, 1999’s Stir of Echoes .
Half a decade since his critical failure Mortdecai and only a few more years since his highly criticized The Mummy script, Koepp is handling double duty as director and writer here.
There’s good work too from Ian McShane (memorably slimy), Martin Donovan (seriously in danger of being typecast in absent-minded professor roles) and The Mummy’s Arnold Vosloo as McShane’s henchman.
But it was inspired casting to give The Mummy a part as Brinkman’s scarred and shaven henchman.
That terrorist is played by Arnold Vosloo ("The Mummy"), just one of the adults having fun playing second fiddle to the kids.