20 Alternative 2017 Movie Awards

This moment may be the perfect distillation of the thought that went into Universal's failing, and possibly even abandoned, Dark Universe. During an exchange, Russell Crowe's Jekyll refers to Tom Cruise's character as a 'young man'. That's it, just a harmless throwaway line of dialogue. So what makes it so strange?

It pretty much sums up The Mummy, and the approach to the larger Dark Universe, as a whole. The line comes during yet another Jekyll exposition dump, as the movie decides that having a character basically tell the audience both the plot of this movie and the wider mythology in a series of monologues is a better idea than using the narrative of the movie they literally just paid to see to lay the groundwork.

It also lines up with the rumors that Cruise and his creative control clause had essentially assumed control of the project from the hapless Alex Kurtzman, with the star's famous ego no doubt being fed by being referred to in such glowing terms.

The real kicker? Cruise is almost two years older than Crowe.