10 Movies That Take Themselves Way Too Seriously

You can chalk this one up to Tom Cruise, who thought, alongside Universal, that he was on the precipice of creating a new blockbuster action franchise for himself.

Alas, that was not the case. The so-called Dark Universe died with The Mummy, a very loose remake of the same-titled 1999 cult classic (itself a remake, albeit a good one) that was meant to be a moody horror flick before Cruise took control of the project, hoping to make it more suited to his action hero persona.

The results are shocking, with Cruise giving one of the laziest performances of his career and director Alex Kurtzman unable to balance the film's brief trips into horror, uninspired action, and dire attempts to set up a franchise.

On its own, The Mummy is self-serious and dull, but remembering it was supposed to be a major starting point in a greenlit movie franchise makes it that much more difficult to take as seriously as it takes itself and its potential future.