By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
“The Mummy” was designed as the first entry in an upcoming Universal franchise to be called the “Dark Universe,” featuring interconnected classic horror monsters from the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s
Opening with an Egyptian proverb that specifies “we never die” but, instead, reincarnate again and again, it introduces a pharaoh’s treacherous daughter, Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who murdered her father, his second wife and their infant son after making a pact with Set, god of the dead.
Mummified and buried alive, Ahmanet’s tomb is ‘discovered’ in Iraq by antiquity-hunting Army Sergeant Nick Morton (Tom Cruise), his buddy (Jake Johnson) and archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis).
Disregarding Jenny’s warning about an ancient curse, cocky Nick releases exotic, tattooed Ahmanet from imprisonment. This ancient enchantress subsequently sucks the life out of her victims with a deadly kiss, transforming them into zombies, while her spirit inhabits and confuses Nick, her “chosen” host.
Eventually, they all wind up in London, where Nick confronts maniacal Dr. Jekyll (Russell Crowe) and his alter-ego Mr. Hyde, who heads Prodigium, a clandestine organization that monitors evil entities around the world, as they search for the mystical Dagger of Set and its missing ruby finial.
Skimpily scripted by a team of writers and director Alex Kurtzman, it’s filled with nonsensical action as thieving, impulsive, amoral Nick works his way toward some sort of dubious redemption.
Lacking originality — except in bestowing two glowing irises in each of Ahmanet’s eyes — even the CGI is disappointing, making one yearn for previous “Mummy” pictures that starred Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Christopher Lee or even genial Brendan Fraser.
Without a sense of mystery, danger or fun, the superficial concept plays like an elaborate, expensive prologue for the Invisible Man (Johnny Depp) and Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster (Javier Bardem).
FYI: British actress Annabelle Wallis (Henry VIII’s third wife Jane Seymour in Showtime’s “The Tudors”) is a niece of the late Richard Harris, best known to Millennials as Dumbledore in “Harry Potter.”
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Mummy” is a frantic 4, a monstrous flop.
In “The Lovers,” middle-aged Michael (Tracy Letts) and Mary (Debra Winger) are mired in a miserable marriage. So it’s not surprising that they’re both having adulterous affairs with younger partners.
Michael is involved with Lucy (Melora Walters), a grasping, obviously unstable ballet teacher who pressures him to get a divorce, while Mary is besotted by Robert (Aidan Gillen), an aspiring novelist who wants her to move in with him.
Leading detached lives, neither Michael nor Mary seem willing to commit, either to each other or to their paramours. In fact, the closer they come to separating, the more sexually attracted they are — to each other. Their duplicity is a puzzlement.
In the meantime, their college-age son, Joel (Tyler Ross), comes home to introduce his new girlfriend Erin (Jessica Sula); she’s black, something that no one seems to notice or mention. Instead, Joel and Erin are immediately enmeshed in his parents’ tawdry emotional chaos.
Written and directed by Azazel Jacobs, it’s plodding, uneven and strangely superficial. Aside from texting and trysting, neither Michael nor Mary has a life. They’re both ostensibly working but they spend little time in their cubicles, paying little or no attention to their jobs. Philandering occupies all their time.
Performances propel the picture. Tracy Letts is the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of “August: Osage County,” while Debra Winger, decades after “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “Terms of Endearment,” still exudes attitudinal honesty combined with smoldering sexiness.
On the Granger Gauge, “The Lovers” is a self-sabotaging 6, weighing the pros and cons of trading spouses.
According to a BBC poll taken in 2002, Winston Churchill is “the greatest Briton that ever lived.” So “Churchill” imagines the turmoil that may have occurred a few days before D Day, as the Allied Forces prepare to liberate Nazi-occupied France on June 6, 1944.
Still riddled with guilt over his role in the disastrous 1915 Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during the previous war with Germany, Churchill (Brian Cox) is wracked with doubt. He vehemently opposes Operation Overlord’s amphibious attack on the French coastline.
Swilling Scotch and throwing tantrums in an ongoing battle with depression, he antagonizes his long-suffering wife Clementine (Miranda Richardson), along with his frustrated military partners: Britain’s Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery (John Wadham) and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower (John Slattery), the Allies’ supreme commander.
The most memorable scene occurs between cigar-chomping Churchill and King George VI (John Purefoy), as the King gently but firmly reminds his Prime Minister precisely where their duties lie.
Unfortunately, director Jonathan Teplitsky (“The Railway Man”) creates a distorted, ponderous portrait that is further impaired in this simplistic docudrama by Lorne Balfe’s overbearing musical score.
What’s outstanding is Brian Cox’s performance. Physically resembling Churchill, Cox nails the hulking statesman’s stentorian oratorical skill and surly, jaw-jutting glare.
Cox receives stalwart support from Miranda Richardson and James Purefoy, along with Richard Durden as Churchill’s Boer War colleague/aide Jan Smuts and Ella Purnell as Churchill’s new, reverential secretary, whose fiancé is on one of the D-Day warships.
On the Granger Gauge, “Churchill” is a talky, repetitive 5, relating a questionable historical footnote.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
