The Mummy (1999)

Not quite. I want to talk about a couple of more things generally, and not related to this movie specifically. It's a mediocre movie, but I think even BAD movies have a right to exist. I firmly believe an honest failure is perfectly fine, and people demanding perfection from their movies are being unreasonable.

But the movie was super expensive, VERY successful, had two sequels, AND started a spin-off franchise. Would it have killed them to make the movie GOOD? Or at least decent?

And this reason this part of the review is general instead of specific is because I personally think the producers believed it didn't need be. And if you look at the movies in the 1990's, specifically the blockbusters, you'll notice something different about them from the 1970's, and even the 1980's. A LOT of the biggest hits just weren't that great qualitywise. Men In Black, Independence Day, Godzilla, the Jurassic Park movies, even the first four Batman films, they're just THERE, designed as pure popcorn experiences with no real weight to them, or consideration into making them good movies. People like Martin Scorsese despise the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I will argue it's franchises like The Mummy that made the MCU necessary. Am I feeling a little fatigued with it myself? Yes. Do I believe it's taken over too much of Hollywood? Yes. But it did that because outside of the The Lord Of The Rings and Pixar / Disney films, GOOD popcorn flicks were hard to come by. Something the audience could sit down and enjoy? As far as this was concerned, I didn't so much enjoy this film as endure it. And I think that's how movies were for a LOT of us back then. And I get the complaints about Marvel films, and while I do sense a great deal of that is sour grapes from people like Scorsese, I wish there was more variety from that studio myself.

But lousy stuff like The Mummy being considered acceptable made it easy for somebody like Kevin Feige to sweep in and just take over Hollywood instead. The Marvel films didn't even have to be GREAT. And I'd argue most of Phase 1 was NOT. He took over Hollywood just because they were GOOD. That's how hungry franchises like The Mummy made audiences for good movies they could enjoy. And maybe people like Scorsese need to understand, which is come to cookie-cutter filmmaking, The Marvel Cinematic Universe isn't the problem. It never was. It was the solution. Was it the best possible solution? Probably not. But nobody is stopping anybody else from creating a better series of blockbusters, and nobody is actually taking them up on that challenge either. So until Scorsese comes up with a better popcorn flick than Hugo, maybe let Feige do his thing. It beats The Mummy, for sure. **.