'The Mummy' opens the doorway to a shared cinematic universe for Universal Monsters

Photo from IMDb

Fans of monster movies will be thrilled to know that Universal Pictures aims to resurrect the horrors of the past in a new way, as they unleash a “Dark Universe” that modernizes the legendary ghoulish creatures and monstrosities that have immortalized themselves into film history.

The first installment of this new direction is a reboot of the long dormant “The Mummy” film series, once popularized by the first two Stephen Sommers-directed films that starred Brendan Fraser as an adventurer who took Arnold Vosloo’s evil personification of the titular villain.

Now comes a new movie with Hollywood action star Tom Cruise in the lead. And instead of facing an undead male monster, he finds himself battling it out against a female, erm, creature portrayed by French/ Algerian dancer and actress Sofia Boutella.

Similar to its predecessors, the latest incarnation of “The Mummy” follows Cruise as Nick Norton, a soldier-of-fortune who finds a lost tomb in the middle of Iraq. It belongs to the damned Egyptian princess known as Ahmanet.

Unwittingly freeing her, Nick finds himself cursed by Ahmanet. He becomes her chosen host to bring the Egyptian god Set into the human plane.

Photo from IMDb

With the help of archaeologist Jenny Halsey and the secret society called the Prodigium, Nick is the only one who can stop Ahmanet before she destroys everything and releases pure evil into the world.

The film doesn’t hesitate to be a nonsensical popcorn flick. Everything you can see from "The Mummy" is what you can expect from a Tom Cruise vehicle: full of action sequences, stunts, and CGI effects that literally put everything through destruction and chaos.

While the story is certainly a stretch on some parts, it does follow the tried and tested formula of a main character that unwittingly damns himself and seeks redemption, along with an evil monster that is seemingly unstoppable but has a weakness that can be exploited.

The movie also stars Academy Award winning actor Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll – the infamous Robert Louis Stevenson character who here is leader of the Prodigium.

That is another connecting peg to the “Dark Universe” Universal Pictures plans to build, and Monster Movie aficionados will be happy to see some easter eggs loitered around the film.

The Mummy is now showing in theaters.—LA, GMA News