The Mummy Review: 4 Ups & 7 Downs

3. Competent Visuals & Direction

One of the big worries surrounding the movie was that Star Trek and Transformers writer Alex Kurtzman would be directing, considering that he'd only helmed the Chris Pine-starring drama People Like Us prior.

To his credit, he does a better-than-expected job, for though the set-pieces aren't great, it's hard to imagine many directors managing to infuse them with enough style to make them interesting.

Kurtzman essentially doesn't embarrass himself and delivers a competent-looking blockbuster film that's visually coherent for the most part and doesn't succumb to choppy editing, shaky cam or the Vaseline-smear blurriness that affects so many big-budget blockbusters these days.

That's not to say you should be getting pumped about Kurtzman's likely impending career as a tentpole director, but he basically didn't screw it up, which counts as a sure victory here.