Why The Mummy Was A Disaster

7. The Tone Was All Wrong

The Brendan Fraser films had a very specific tone that worked incredibly well, resembling a breezy, fun B-movie, but also throwing in some legitimately disturbing moments of violence when the titular antagonist attacked.

The new movie, though, jettisons this formula and reimagines The Mummy as a far more generic, formulaic blockbuster. It tries to be funny and largely falls flat, while the new villain is far less imposing than Imhotep, and simply feels nowhere near as threatening.

Universal clearly tried to make the safest, most sanitised movie possible, and ironically audiences didn't turn out for it in droves like they expected. The cynicism didn't pay off, thankfully.