Film Preview: The Mummy (2017)

Page Revisions:

(December 4, 2016) Original
(December 11, 2016) New Trailer (#2)
(April 23, 2017) New Trailer (#3) / New Posters (#2-#3)
(May 21, 2017) New Trailer (#4)
(June 4, 2017) New Posters (#4-#5)

Release Date:

June 9, 2017

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “An ancient queen is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia, and terrors that defy human comprehension.”

Poster Rating: B / C / B- / C / C+

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Review: (#1) An excellent tease for a franchise everyone is familiar with.

(#2) Obviously the advertising department things the double-iris thing is really cool as it makes appearances in both trailers and this poster. It’s interesting, sure, but not worth devoting an entire design to it. (#3) The same double-iris element is here too, but we have more rich detail in the lower foreground, which is interesting and putting Tom Cruise front-and-center on the poster is the best option to sell the film even if the overall design isn’t that great.

(#4) A lazy colored backdrop for a film that shouldn’t feel lazy or rigid. (#5) While this is a modestly similar concept to the last, there’s no hazy saturation of color, just a scene of perceived movement creating a dark vision of the setting.

Trailer Rating: C / C- / C- / B-

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Review: (#1) This jumpy, confused trailer has no genuine suspense and present a film that looks agonizingly bland. For a tentpole, that’s not a particularly pleasant way to establish expectations.

(#2) The Universal Monster Movie franchise gets its first entry and if this is what we can expect from it, it’s going to be one of the most idiotic, over-the-top efforts the studios have gone through. What made the universal monster movies a success was that they were subtle and frightening. This trailer suggests a film that’s like a frying pan to the face.

(#3) More of the same with a design that doesn’t vary enough from the previous to be of merit.

(#4) The trailer creators have learned something from past efforts. Plenty of action and suggested horror in this trailer. It still doesn’t look like a movie with much depth, but it seems more appealing in contrast.

Oscar Prospects:

It could be a contender for the creative categories (Production Design, Costume Design, Makeup & Hairstyling, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects) and possibly in Original Score, but that’s it and most of those are iffy prospects.