LEE CRONIN'S THE MUMMY
Starring: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, Shylo Molina, Billie Roy, Veronica Falcón, and Hayat Kamille
Director: Lee Cronin
ROBERT
I was unsure if there was a standard to meet for a director to have their name in the title of a major motion picture, but perhaps there should be. I am a fan of Lee Cronin’s previous effort in Evil Dead Rise, and it’s hard to extricate the elements of that from Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, but this somewhat crumbled under the pressure of using Evil Dead sensibilities in this universe. I went in hoping for satisfying gore, which this had in spades, but the characters and their actions were difficult to comprehend, making for a flawed plot and unnecessary ties to Mummy lore.
KATIE
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy feels like an inadvertent follow-up to Cronin’s previous film Evil Dead Rise, with heavy inspiration drawn from The Exorcist. The mummy aspect is not really important to the story, and incorporating it means wilfully ignoring the questionable character decisions and logical inconsistencies. This isn't to say I didn’t enjoy it; I loved the cringe-inducing body horror, intense gore, and the occasional darkly humorous tone. It should’ve leaned more into that devilish sense of humour the film channels when it's at its best, as its seriousness holds it back and highlights the ridiculousness of the plot.
