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lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks · 8 months

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I have a really weird hyperfixation on The Mummy, but not the Boris Karloff or the Brendan Fraser versions, those would be completely acceptable movies to enjoy (and I do so enjoy them)

but I cannot stop thinking about The Mummy 2017 starring Tom Cruise and it's a problem

I love bad movies, I love them so much, I own so many b-grade horror flicks, old classic films with terrible acting and awful special effects, I love absolutely shit tier cgi, I love Ed Wood disasters, I love cult classic bad movies, I love really weird niche bad movies

but this one is like, such a special kind of bad movie, I can't really put my finger on exactly why though?? but I am damn well going to try, in this essay I will-

they fucked up from the get go by casting Tom Cruise, like this movie is sometimes deliberately goofy, but a lot of the time it takes itself very seriously, SO seriously, and I cannot physically take Tom Cruise seriously, he turns every single scene he is in into a joke by virtue of his mere presence

but when they have actual jokes, they are so not funny they cycle back around to being really fucking funny

I am watching this movie fucking whiff every god damn beat it tries to hit and it does it so beautifully it's a god damn marvel

Russel Crowe as Jekyll and Hyde??? I actually somehow missed the part where he introduced himself as Jekyll on my first watch, so the Hyde reveal was a true surprise to me and I was very genuinely disappointed on my second watch when I realised it was not supposed to be a surprise, because that was a really fun reveal

and Russel Crowe seemed to be having an absolute fucking whale of a time as Hyde, I loved every moment he was on screen with his stupid cockney accent, I would watch his movie, I know it would be bad, that's why I want it, because there is nothing quite like a bad movie with an actor still giving 110%

and the mummy character herself? she was supposed to be pharaoh and then her dad had a son with someone else and now this baby is jumping all up in her place like, okay baby murder might not be the coolest thing in the world but like, she's got ambition, she's getting shit done, she's hustlin' like go get it girl I'm rooting for you babe

also when she sucked the life out of some dude and turned him into a shrivelled husk my roommate said 'she could do that to me and I'd thank her' so she's got that going for her, like girl's a half rotten corpse wrapped in decaying bandages and she still slays

and then we have the completely ridiculous female rivalry??? like this mummy could kill this woman SO MANY TIMES and just doesn't???? for reasons?????? like she could literally kill her in an instant at any moment but no they gotta girl fight for a bit because Tom Cruise is at stake and why wouldn't two hot women fight over Tom Cruise right?? right????

nevermind the fact that he has been practically nothing but ✨The WooOOOOooorst✨ to her the WHOLE first act of the movie, oh and uh let's not forget the 'duh huh guy bad at sex' jokes that they just could not put down for a good chunk there (but wait! uh he's good at sex actually she's just being mean because he hurt her feewings)

like, this movie hits every fucking branch of the bad trope tree, this movie is playing bad trope bingo, it is collecting bad tropes like pokemon, it has to have them all

also a really bizarre ongoing American Werewolf in London reference?? it was not unwelcome, it was some of the best comedy in the movie (that is an easy bar to jump btw), the actor had some great wry line delivery, I enjoyed it

I think the biggest issue, and the reason I can't stop chewing on this magnum opus of garbage, is that it reminds me of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in several different ways

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen also happens to be another of my favourite bad movies, but it falls into the particular genre of bad movies, a fucking cool as shit concept, and some really cool as shit visuals, and some very cool as shit characters, but an absolute swing and a miss on the delivery

The Mummy 2017 starring Tom Cruise has That Vibe to me, there is some cool shit here, we know this because the previous version utilised that cool shit very very well, but this one was the only one who made the villain a woman pursuing a man, and not just any man, the ✨worst✨ man, you did not feel very sorry for this guy, honestly watching him go through the constant torment of being stalked by a bodacious supernatural babe who put a sexy little curse kiss on him was fun, he's a sopping wet little meow meow and I wanna see him thrown at a wall, and I get to see that several times, and it is a delight every time

in the previous movie the mummy went after really likeable characters, people who were just generally nice, a roguish scamp with a heart of gold, or just really hot, seriously that cast was beyond smoking what the fu

I did not like Tom Cruise as a character, and to be fair that was the point, he was supposed to have a redemption arc, the story and his sacrifice at the end were supposed to be about him becoming a better person

but he fucking doesn't??? it's like 'oh boo hoo I have made this great sacrifice and now I am a monster and I did it to save my lady love's life even though we had zero chemistry and I was just ✨The Worst✨ to her' and then he fucks off to go and do the exact same shit he was doing at the start of the movie, fucking around in the desert looking for boy adventures

it was a great ending and I loved it because it was so dumb and also he abandoned the woman he brought back to life to go fuck around with his bro who he also brought back to life, I love that for them, go have some boy adventures you madlads you sure didn't earn it but don't let that stop you, just heterosexually ride off into the sunset together it's fine, she is literally better off without you in every way you made the Correct Decision

and then there's these moments, moments that are treated like big moments, and could be really cool moments, but just don't fucking land

there's a part where Tom Cruise starts talking to the mummy in her own language (they got a psychic bond and shit which is it's own cool little thing we'll get back to that) and everyone is watching like 😮 oooh didn't know he could do that wow there really IS magic bond between them oooh, and it's like a Big Deal and Very Cool

but Tom Cruise just sounds like he's speaking gibberish with a mouth full of novocain???? it doesn't sound cool at all??? it sounds really goofy???? I half expected him to start drooling on himself

then there is the ending, leading lady dies, he completes the ritual to invite the god of death into his body (a fucking baller move honestly), he fights it for control as the mummy attempts to sway the beast inside him to her side, but when he sees his beloved laying dead he fights her off, using his newfound powers to defeat her, and then weeps over his lady love begging for her to wake up

and then as he lets the god inside him loose, a terrible monstrous visage takes him over as he bloodcurdlingly screams in her face WAKE UP!!! and the power within him that he doesn't understand and can barely control listens

she wakes, and sees him hiding in the shadows, unable to face her now that he has become something terrifying

at least that's what I think they thought the scene would be like, it was a little more like, some crappy flashback and speed up effects as he becomes the god of death, a really pathetic and uneventful 1 minute of him fighting for control, after which he has a really pathetic and uneventful 1 minute of fighting the mummy, and then as he screams for his lady love to wake up, we get a shot of some absolutely fucking god awful cgi and the most uninspired monster face I've ever seen

I mean, half seen, it was a very dark shot, in fact most of the movie is shot in the dark, a very blatant attempt to obscure the shithouse cgi

except in one scene where it kinda fucking slapped, where the mummy sucks the life out of some guys, and then reanimates their husky corpses as thralls, the way they stand like jerky unstable puppets being dragged to their feet by unseen strings was actually pretty fuckin' dope and the dark scene obscured the details in just the right amount to make their uncannily decrepit silhouettes appear super creepy

this is the only time that trick works, every other time I just want someone to turn on a fucking torch so I can actually see what the hell's going on

okay now let's get back to that psychic bond thing

our main character was chosen not because he was a descendant, or a reincarnation, or just Looked Real Pretty (although I think she did have the hots for him a leeetle bit which is like, girl raise your standards, it's Tom Cruise, he's about as sexually appealing as a wet potato, you can do better), he had absolutely zero in common with the mummy's original choice for this ritual, in fact that guy was not significant to the story at all, I think he was just some dude who was down for some ritual shenanigans 'cause a hot lady asked him (also he was hotter than Tom Cruise so this is a significant downgrade, I feel like if she had the opportunity to shop around a little she might have picked better)

so Tom Cruise wasn't chosen for any reason other than that he's the one who released her, and she sees this as her way of saying thank you, and I love that, it's real sweet, would love if I opened a door for someone and they repaid me by summoning a god of death into my body, that really shows they care you know?

she gives him a little hallucinatory kissy kiss and then manages to follow him everywhere, while also compelling him to follow her without him really knowing it, there is a very cool part where he's trying to drive away from her, but somehow ends up driving in a circle and falling right back into her clutches, that was cool, that had the potential to even be super fucking creepy, she can manipulate him without him even realising, it doesn't matter where he goes or what he does, he will always somehow find his way back to her, that's so good, I love that

and then back to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comparisons

The Mummy 2017 starring Tom Cruise established a concept of an organisation who hunt down, collect, and research supernatural phenomena, with a leader (Jekyll) who also has ulterior motives and is actually not really the good guy, this movie was also supposed to be part of a monster movie cinematic universe, so this really could have become like, the Universal Monster Movie equivalent of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and I would have watched the hell out of that, and I am crushed that this movie bombed so bad and ruined the whole plan

like could you imagine a whole series as bad as this movie? all culminating together as the most god awful Avengers style team up? fuuuck I want to live in that universe so bad

I think my fascination comes from this ungodly mix of real pure potential, those fleeting super fucking cool moments and concepts that, if given to literally any other actor, could have really been something, and the just pure insane failure to make literally anything in this plot successfully land a hit

somehow this movie felt like the completely dead and soulless corpse of a cheap party clown, while the ghost of something incredible flickered in its eyes

#the mummy 2017 #movie breakdown #I have Things To Say

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below-average-fangirl · 2 years

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I'm halfway through Tom Cruise's filmography, and one aspect of his acting which stood out to me is that he's unafraid to show vulnerability on screen, be it fear, silliness, or embarrassment, i.e.

- Jerry Maguire face-planting onto the floor when he rushes back into the office after being fired.

- Ethan Hunt in Fallout after the bathroom fight when Ilsa tells him he doesn't know what he's involved with. "I don't know what I'm involved in. I don't know what I'm involved in... What am I involved in?"

- Ethan Hunt in Rogue Nation when he attempted to jump over the hood of the car, slipped and face-planted onto the floor.

- Bill Cage when he is wiped out by a car while running to Rita in Edge of Tomorrow.

- Jack Reacher looking at the knife when he has to face off with the bad guys who have assault rifles.

I couldn't help but think of Harrison Ford. It’s been said somewhere by someone that one of the great traits Ford has as a screen actor is the ability to show fear without undermining his hero status, and I think Tom Cruise shares this trait, as well as humor. Their characters are funny and they will often lean into the humor without undercutting it, and that makes them more relatable. However, despite those similarities, the way I respond to them as an audience member is very, very different.

Harrison Ford is an actor I grew up watching, and Star Wars and Indiana Jones were the main staples. While I did enjoy those films, even as a kid, there was an energy Ford brought to the screen which felt dangerous. Thankfully, this is all brilliantly examined by Pop Culture Detective in this video, and jumping off the back of that, I want to talk about the power dynamics between Tom's characters and the female leads in his action films.

Let’s start with Nick Morton in The Mummy, who is an adventurous type in a similar vein to Indiana Jones. Both characters go around stealing artifacts. Although Indiana Jones would claim he’s preserving them by putting them in a museum, he's still stealing them from the indigenous culture. Nick is more honest with himself about being a thief. Another distinction between Nick Morton and Indiana Jones is how they interact with their respective heroines. Our first introduction to Jenny Halsey in The Mummy is when she, without hesitation, slaps Nick across the face and calls him out for stealing some papers from her. Nick plays dumb because he thinks she won’t want to admit that they slept together. However, Jenny is not at all embarrassed by this and instead uses it to get in a dig about Nick’s prowess in bed. In response to this, Nick makes a quip that she didn't complain the night before about his performance. The key difference between what you would see from a character like Indiana Jones in this scene is that at no point during this exchange does Nick get in Jenny’s face or manhandle her to try and intimidate her physically to reassert his masculinity.

Then there's Bill Cage in Edge of Tomorrow, who, like Nick Morton, is a morally ambiguous character. Cage is a coward who finds himself a safe job far away from the fighting, but is suddenly stripped of his rank and thrust onto the frontline after the attempted blackmail of an army general backfires. When he first comes across Rita Vrataski on the beach, he is lying on his belly, out of his depth in battle and looking up at her with bewilderment and awe, the Angel of Verdun. Rita is then immediately killed by a rocket blast right in front of him. The second time Cage meets Rita on the beach, he saves her life by pushing her out of the way of the rocket and getting hit instead. This is where we see Rita’s determination and single-minded focus to win the war; she does not stop to mourn or thank the man who saved her life; instead, she steals Cage’s power back and leaves him for dead on the beach. This ruthlessness does not deter Cage from seeking her out again on the battlefield. He knows Rita is his way off this beach. Once Rita understands that he has the power to reset the day, this is where Cage’s purpose changes from trying to save himself to serving Rita. We witness this with the scene at the farmhouse where he is kneeling at her feet serving her coffee.

By this point in the film, Cage is as well trained as Rita, but his authority never supersedes hers; he is only ever subservient. He does try to deter her from the mission by not admitting that they have been at the farmhouse before. He already knows that no matter what he does, he can’t save her, he can’t get her past this point, and what gives him away is three sachets of sugar. That one caring act of being prepared to make her coffee as she likes it is enough for Rita to realize that he’s lying, that they have been at this farmhouse multiple times. Here is where something shifts in Cage, because after witnessing Rita’s death this time, instead of telling her in the next loop that he can reset the day, he decides to find the omega on his own, knowing that if he succeeds, Rita will be dead.

"I’m a soldier. Why does it matter what happens to me?"

Cage is learning that in war you can’t save everyone, something Rita knew when in one loop she unceremoniously took his power pack after saving her. This is when he begins to be on an equal footing with Rita, demonstrated in the scene where they both realize, and agree without words, that they have to break into Whitehall to steal the transponder. While they had been a team before, Cage is now fully onboard with the job of finding and killing the omega. They then only have one shot left at succeeding, because Cage has lost the ability to reset the day anymore, but Rita trusts Cage to do it. This finally shows that they are equals.

In contrast to Nick Morton and Bill Cage, there’s Ethan Hunt, a morally good character who is intelligent, highly capable, and most importantly, empathetic. I won't go through all six Mission Impossible films, but instead, solely focus on the dynamic between Ethan and Ilsa. Ilsa saves Ethan on multiple occasions in Rogue Nation.

The first time the audience and Ethan meet Ilsa is at a moment when Ethan is incredibly vulnerable. He just witnessed the murder of a fellow IMF agent before being gassed and kidnapped, where he wakes up tied to a pole in a basement under threat of torture. It is only because of Ilsa that Ethan makes it out alive. The second time they cross paths is after the opera in Vienna, where we learn that Ilsa is an MI6 agent who is deep undercover.

Slowly, the film is building a connection between Ilsa and Ethan, but one that doesn’t override either one's main objective. As much as Ilsa has a sense of loyalty to an agent from an allied country, and saves Ethan again from the water tank, to escape from Ethan in the bike chase, she steps into his path suddenly, causing him to fall off and skid into the dirt. In any other film, this would be a humiliating moment for the main character, and there would almost certainly be a scene to balance it out and give the upper hand back to the male hero, but not in Rogue Nation.

There is not one scene where Ethan tries to reassert control or dominance over Ilsa, like the kind you would see in a Harrison Ford film where he gets into the personal space of a woman to sexually intimidate her. Instead, it is established that Ilsa, throughout the film, is Ethan's equal, and his masculinity is not threatened by this; nor is he humiliated in being rescued by her; and he feels no need to try and assert his dominance.

This is something which continues into Fallout, where once again Ilsa saves Ethan, and once again they are starting from opposite objectives. Ethan has to break Lane out, Ilsa has to kill him, and the essence of their relationship is distilled beautifully by Christopher McQuarrie.

There is emotional maturity and understanding between the two of them that elevates their relationship above what you would normally find in this genre of film between two spies of the opposite sex.

However, the character who is the most interesting to look at in terms of male/female power dynamics is Jack Reacher, as he is probably the most traditional action hero Tom Cruise has played. Reacher is a gruff, no-nonsense man of few words, and as the book outlines, his philosophy is: Hit early, hit hard. Kill with the first blow. Get your retaliation in first. This man is dangerous. Yet, at no point do I feel that the female characters are in danger around Reacher simply because they are women.

First off, the waitress who clears away Reacher’s table. It’s a small but, I think, important interaction. All Reacher does is give her a "fancy it" kind of look, but there's nothing aggressive or leary about it, and when she rejects him, he's disappointed but quickly moves on.

Secondly, the dynamic between him and Sandy in the first scene at the bar; he is being tough on her, but we know that he’s seen her argue with some guy before coming to sit at his table, so he’s probing. He’s trying to work out what her angle is. He’s mean, but he’s never intimidating. Then later, when he goes to Sandy's work, he’s pissed that she tried to set him up, but at no point do I ever feel Sandy is in danger, and at no point does Reacher try to exert information out of her by getting into her personal space. He never uses the threat of sexual violence to get that. His whole attitude is much more that of a disappointed dad. When he understands what is going on with her, and that she is a victim too, he softens toward her because she is just a kid.

Then there’s the main relationship between Jack and Helen. From the get-go, there’s an attraction but also competitiveness. Two very intelligent and competent people who are good at what they do spend the first half of the film trying to get a handle on one another and their motives. But in terms of sexual power dynamics between the two, I think there is one part where the film has Reacher lean into an action film trope, but then pulls away from it.

It’s the scene with Helen in the hotel, where Reacher is shirtless and says they need some sleep. He reaches across her, and for a moment, Helen thinks he’s suggesting sex, but instead he puts her keys in her hand. I think that was Reacher playing with her a bit, teasing her about something possibly happening to see how she would react, but it never feels threatening. He doesn’t linger in her personal space because he knows that nothing can happen between them. He will leave town once the mystery is resolved. The one scene where they do get close, where they linger and lock eyes, is the moment in the lobby where Helen gives Reacher the address to the gun range. That scene feels very different to what you would normally see in this kind of film. They feel very much like equals, like they’ve come to understand one another at last, and while they both feel the attraction, Reacher is never dominating.

To me, it feels like Reacher is thinking about more than sex between them. To me, there is a hint that he’s thinking he could have a different kind of life and that if he wasn't who he was, he could have a normal life with her.

TL:DR: Ultimately, what I find reassuring about Tom Cruise’s characters in action films and how they relate to the heroine is that they avoid the standard trope of sexual banter or intimidation. There may be sexual tension between them, but it’s not the dominating force in their interactions. The films respect the abilities and agency of the heroine and never tell us that the male hero is emasculated for being rescued or held accountable by a woman.

Thank you to @indifferentvincent for letting me ramble in the DMs and helping me make this coherent.

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