#alive it would have been so much better like the 1999 movie The Mummy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

captain-apostrophe · 3 years

Note

I wanted to read through the whole list but I can't go past the mummy one (I love that movie so much) and in honour of FINALLY having a weekend off so I can read the hand is a voice could we have qingming? dealers choice if wen qing is rick and mingjue eve or vice versa (likewise either didi would, I think, make a fine jonathan). Thank you ^.^

I even rewatched the film to make sure I had the vibe for this and guys, it's such a good fucking time. I almost wrote the opening sequence of Imhotep's punishment and entombment instead, because it reminded me of NMJ chained to the table and getting beheaded, but it didn't feel shippy enough and imo swashbuckling WQ is much better than concubine WQ.

I hope you enjoyed THIAV, anon! Thanks for reading! <3

(also on ao3, if you prefer to read it there)

[pg; QingJue; The Mummy (1999)]

- Beloved -

Wen Qing ran into the chamber and then skidded to a halt on the sand-strewn stone when she saw what it contained - they were almost too late.

"Dage!" Huaisang shouted, as he scurried in behind her. "We got the book!"

Iaret, High Priestess of the goddess Serket, froze with her centuries-tarnished blade in the air over where Mingjue was chained to the stone table.

He was bare-chested and with his hair loose like a mane around his head as if he'd been snatched out of his bed and dragged out into the desert without so much as a chance to put shoes on. Well, there would be time to have a crisis about how good he looked later, when they weren't in imminent danger of death by three thousand year old mummies.

"Less talking!" Mingjue said. "More reading the damn spell!"

The shout drew Iaret's attention back to him, but Wen Qing was having none of it.

"Hey!" she shouted, grabbing a length of rope hanging nearby and praying it would hold her weight. "Get your own man, you crusty old bitch!"

She swung out off the ledge and kicked Iaret back from the stone table. Before the Priestess could recover, Wen Qing swung the sword she'd liberated from one of the lesser mummies, busting the chain around Mingjue's wrist. For a long, loaded moment he stared up at her, wide-eyed like he couldn't believe what was happening (but was, on some slightly perverse level, enjoying it anyway), and then Iaret shrieked like a storm whipping up the desert sands and there was no more time for meaningful glances.

"Get to your brother," Wen Qing snapped. "And find the spell before she gets the upper hand."

Then she rounded on Iaret again, leaving him to scrabble at the chains around his ankles, ignoring Huaisang's frantic, stammering translations - he didn't know the language as well as Mingjue did, though he'd apparently picked up a stumbling grasp of it.

Wen Qing and the ancient priestess circled around each other, and Wen Qing counted it a blessing that Iaret was no more of a warrior than she herself was. They struck at each other, and parried, and neither had the advantage.

"This is not what I went to med school for," Wen Qing growled. "And it is not what I signed up for when I took this damn assignment!"

But of course, then she'd met these idiot brothers and realised that she was the only one with a hope of keeping them alive long enough to find their fabled text.

And, okay, the thought of the untold medical knowledge it could contain had been tempting too.

Iaret howled again, a horrible animal sound from such a beautiful mouth, and Wen Qing was glad she didn't know what the priestess was saying. It was almost certainly nothing nice.

"Any second now!" Wen Qing shouted back at the brothers, risking a glance over her shoulder to see them huddled over the book and arguing about its contents.

She ducked, fell back against the stone table, then pushed off from it to knock Iaret away. The priestess stumbled, dragging Wen Qing down with her. The knife was between them and it was only when Iaret began to laugh that Wen Qing realised it had stabbed into the priestess's belly.

She didn't need to speak an ancient Egyptian dialect to know the priestess was mocking her, then, reminding her that she was immortal and that no human weapon could kill her.

"Okay!" Huaisang announced. "We have it!"

Iaret was still laughing, shoving at Wen Qing, as Mingjue spoke the incantation - and then she froze, and a light went out of her eyes, and Wen Qing looked down to see blood pooling between them.

"Next time," Wen Qing muttered, as she scrambled back and the priestess's stolen body crumbled to dust, "maybe you'll keep your hands to yourself."

#prompt fill #fic-iversary prompts #the untamed #fanfic #qingjue #cap' writes #the mummy

7 notes · View notes

kevinmax44 · 4 years

Text

I am now a believer of a thought I just had a few months back. It said

“Excess of everything is dangerous. And the boundaries you decide to not reach that excess is called discipline”

At almost every phase of your life, fate introduces you to certain people, certain things, certain powers, certain luxuries which we get used to. Everyone in this world has a right to enjoy all of these. The problem begins when after a considerable period of time, we become incapable of realizing that these people, these things, these luxuries, aren’t going to be with us for very long. Let me take you through some of these that we often experience or observe, but fail to realize.

Too much of luxuries

In a classroom discussion I had with my professor and friends, we came up with a quote. It was

“As time passes, every luxury becomes a necessity”

The above line beautifully shows that humans grow used to every luxury they have had in life for way too long. I would share the example of someone who realized the same on his own.

Just a few months back, before the lockdowns were put into place, me and my friends had visited Ahmedabad to participate in an event conducted by a reputed college. It was to be a 2-day event so we were given accommodations in the college hostel itself. It was a huge campus and we were in awe of it. We were busy admiring those big gardens, department buildings, libraries and the canteen. This is when I became a victim of something called the Halo-effect. We assumed, since the campus was so good, the hostels would be the same. After the inaugural ceremonies, we were taken to the hostel to freshen up and get ready after a 4-hour journey from Rajkot to Ahmedabad. We reached the hostel and the first thought was, “Okay. Not exactly what we expected, but this is alright”. This thought was very short lived once we entered the hostel. The room given to us was a total mess. It was to be shared with 3 other people. This was however the better part. As everybody else would normally do, the next thing we went to check were the washrooms. It won’t be an exaggeration to say anyone would faint at the first glimpse of the washrooms. Me and my friend looked at each other and without saying a word we communicated to each other “We have to run from here”. Call it good luck or anything, he told me his sister was in the same town just a little away and she would be happy to let us stay at her place. A breathed a sigh of relief, but was hesitant to stay at his sister’s. I knew her personally and called her ‘chechi’, which is Malayalam for ‘elder sister’. She was really kind enough for letting us stay at her home.

This is when I realized, that I had grown used to clean rooms, clean washrooms and good food. A lot of people don’t get these luxuries in their lives ever. The students in those hostels have been surviving in these conditions for almost 2 years now. The lesson learnt from this incident was:

“Too much of luxuries always brings down your ability to adapt to difficult living conditions”

Too much of curiosity

This is an example for the movie buffs. The 1999 Hollywood fiction movie called The Mummy is the best example of curiosity not just killing the cat, but also the people around it. The story was about a British girl, aspiring to be an Egyptologist, who lived with her brother. The brother stole a certain artifact from a traveler and sister identified the artifact from the ancient Egyptian era of mummies. The artifact also contained a map which led to an ancient city which was believed to be lost and also kind of cursed. The sister then talks to the traveler and he agrees to take them to the city. They reach the city after a lot of travelling through seas and deserts. During their excavation, the find a sarcophagus (coffin) that had the body of a priest who was mummified alive for having tried his luck on the pharaoh’s (Egyptian king) to be wife and for murdering the pharaoh. The girl steals a book from another Egyptologist while he was asleep. She figured out that the book could be opened with the artifact that her brother had got his hands on earlier, it was a key. The girl had always been curious of these stories about ancient Egypt and its kings. She opens the book and reads a portion of it and just when she finished reading it, the other Egyptologist tells her she shouldn’t read from that book. But it was too late, the reading from the book had brought back to life the priest who lay dead in the sarcophagus they discovered earlier. The girl’s curiosity about ancient curses led to the death of several other people in the movie, including that of the Egyptologist because the mummy was on a path to kill the people who had dug him up and stole some jars that probably contained his body parts.

A real life example of this curiosity would be the creation of Africanized honey bees. Sometime around the 1950s, the government of Brazil authorized a researcher to create a hybrid variety of honey bees to increase the production of honey. Some European species of honey bee was carefully bred with another species and a new variety of bees came into existence. These new ones were found to be much more defensive than their parent breeds. They were so occupied with studying and observing these new bees that they failed to ensure they don’t escape. Unfortunately, one day these bees escaped the quarantine and spread out across the country and in some years, they were able to reach the shores of USA. These bees have been responsible of around 1000 deaths since then.

The lesson learnt from this was:

“Too much of curiosity doesn’t kill the cat alone. A lot of others have to pay the price of meddling with something they are not prepared to handle”

Too much of power

John Dalberg-Acton rightly said that “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. When someone is given the absolute power, they have nothing to fear, no repercussions to face and absolutely nobody to answer to. Absolute powers were what created the likes of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Absolute power is the difference between leaders and dictators. Absolute power makes an individual the judge, jury and executioner with unlimited powers.

That is the reason why modern democracies around the world have made arrangements from ever giving rise to a Hitler or a Mussolini in their country. Taking the example of our own country, the Indian system has 3 different pillars, named the Legislature, the executive and the Judiciary. This is popularly known as the separation of powers. This system ensures that nobody in the system is left unchecked of his powers, authorities and jurisdictions. It ensures that nobody is ever in a position to singlehandedly seize power and inflict his/her will on the people.

The lesson learnt from all the past of having absolute powers is:

“Too much of power is just another wildfire left unchecked”

Too much of importance

The people who we consider important in our lives are usually the ones who we look up to or go to in the hour of need. They hold a very special place in our hearts and in our lives.

The instance I am going to narrate for this part is an experience/learning of my own. I had a very close friend. In my entire life, starting from the days of schooling, to my graduation and now the post-graduation, this was one friendship, I consider to be the best till date. This was one person with whom I shared lame jokes, my joys, sorrows, heartbreaks and what not. I had kept absolutely no secrets from this person and neither there were any secrets from this person’s side (not at least that I know of). I had to make zero efforts to have a conversation or to share a secret or something embarrassing with them. There came a time where we used to talk almost the entire day. I was having a great time. I had somebody to irritate and someone who would irritate me. People don’t accept it, but they like to be teased or annoyed by the people they like. This was that one person for me. For almost a period of 6 months, we were the best of friends. I may also have ignored some of my old friends once this person became friends with me. I never believed I could be this open to anyone who I had just known for months.

Things however started to change. There was one week where I hardly received any message from this person. I was a little sad but didn’t want to share this with the person; I didn’t want to look like someone who was desperate to be friends with them. I thought maybe it was just a few days and everything would spring back to normal in the future. The future however didn’t show up for the next 4 months. For reasons I don’t wish to share, the distance kept growing and today we’re just like any other friends that we have. I was sad because I lost my best friend to something very stupid, which till date I don’t understand. I don’t hold any grudges, neither I have any sort of hatred for the person. It has always been a little difficult for me to deal with people distancing themselves. I learnt the real meaning of “Never put all your eggs in one basket”. I made this person into my buddy, my confidant and best friend. I don’t regret being friends with this person at all; I had the best friendship of my life and in the end, I learnt a big lesson, which is not to be forgotten. Mathematics defines circle as a collection of infinite points which lie at an equal distance from the centre. Why should our friends ‘circle’ then consist of just one person? I made a serious error and I hope that I can help everyone save themselves from any sort of hurt in the future.

The lesson learnt here was:

“Too much of importance given to someone, is just an expectation or hope that is about to turn into disappointment”

The entire thing that I just finished writing can be summarized in a single line and that is:

“Too much of anything will hurt too much”

2 notes · View notes

chizyk · 5 years

Text

Death is only the beginning

MarcoAce Week 2019, promt “Monsters”;

@marcoaceweek AO3 “ “Ankhreshet?” he whipped his head round at the sound of a raspy voice so fast he almost got whiplash. He could feel his body going completely cold as he saw the mummy’s empty eye sockets staring right at him. ”

Heavily inspired by the movies “The Mummy” (1999) and “The Mummy Returns” (2001).

Mummy AU, Modern AU; Rating: T (just in case); Italics = speach in ancient Egyptian.

A bit late for this promt, but better late than never xD. Enjoy <3

“’It's just a book. No harm ever came from reading a book,’ he said.” Ace kept ranting under his breath, mocking his brother, Sabo, as he ran through the corridors of the ancient Egyptian city that had been believed to be lost for several millennia. The situation that they had gotten themselves into was out of this world, even by their standards. If he were to tell it to anyone, they would, no doubt, think he was insane. It’s something you’d expect to see on TV or read in a book – in the fantasy section, mind you. He still hoped that this was just a dream, or maybe he actually went insane and they hadn’t brought a cursed mummy back to life!

“For fucks sake!” he cursed as he rounded the corner of the long passageway, only to find yet another dead end. The place was like a maze, hieroglyphs doing very little in giving him directions at all.

He remembered reading about Hamunaptra in his ancient Egypt classes at his university, and how the modern historians and Egyptologists regarded it as nothing more than a myth. But when Luffy returned from one of his crazy trips with his friends and actually brought back an artifact that contained a map of the location of the city, it lit a fire in Ace, one bigger than ever before. He had an intense feeling that he simply must go and see it with his very own eyes.

He loved ancient Egypt, had done ever since he was a child; but it wasn’t just a random fascination, there was something else, something that he didn’t share with a lot of people.

He’d had dreams that he couldn’t explain ever since he was as young as four. Dreams so vivid and real, that at that age he could not separate the dreams from reality. And he had known it wasn’t just childish imagination, but no one could explain it. As Ace grew older he started to have visions, just like his dreams, only while he was awake. They got him into plenty of awkward situations, but that had been when he finally knew there was a lot more to it. They weren’t just random dreams he was having, or some crazy paranoia or delusion. He wasn’t crazy. These dreams and visions had continuation – the same place, same people. It was like a puzzle, piecing everything together piece by piece. He had vivid visions of two men, both tall and strong. One of them was older and looked like a pharaoh, judging by his attire and authority that he displayed. The other was also of high importance but of lesser stature; Ace believed he was either the pharaoh’s adviser or a high priest.

As for himself… he had thought he was a servant, but as he grew older and went into puberty, some of his visions started to get some sexual undertones and later became downright explicit, involving both the pharaoh and the high priest. He never knew their names – they rarely talked in his dreams – and he was able to understand parts of it only when he started to study and learn ancient Egyptian.

From what he could tell and puzzle together, both his dreams and information found in his research and studies of their societal norms and customs from back in the day, he was most likely a concubine of the pharaoh, but was having an affair with the high priest. The forbidden love scenario.

He tried to find historical records of the people he saw and managed to trace only the pharaoh – Akhenaten. He wasn’t the most popular ruler – as a matter of fact, finding information on him was almost impossible and what information he did manage to get on him was very limited and brief. All Ace could find out was that he ruled for approximately 20 years, but wasn’t loved very much by his people.

He believed his visions and dreams were memories. Memories of his past life. He read many articles about reincarnation and perhaps he would’ve been skeptical in other circumstances, but he couldn’t ignore everything that had happened to him. The possibility of ever being able to find more clues on what he saw in his dreams and what it meant was what drove Ace to go into studying ancient Egypt in the first place.

When they received full funding for the expedition to find the city he was beyond excited. He felt like he was about to discover something important not just historically, but personally. For some reason he always believed that City of the Dead was not just a myth, and perhaps his past life had a connection to that place.

It was risky to go out and wander around the desert to find it, but when they did, it was far greater than whatever they imagined they would find. It was magnificent! Most of the buildings were, shockingly, still intact and in good condition. Simply extraordinary. The moment Ace set foot on the grounds he felt as if he were…home. As if he was where he was supposed to be.

But now he was regretting ever thinking that coming here was a good idea. Discovering Hamunaptra was possibly the biggest historical discovery made in recent years, but they had fucked up. They had fucked up and now everyone was fucked along with them!

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He knew something was off the moment they stepped foot in that unmarked tomb under the statue of Anubis. He tried to brush it off –he was so, so excited, after all – but when they found the sarcophagus with a mummy still decomposing in it, Ace felt the feeling return tenfold, especially after seeing all the writings and warnings across his burial place.

He knew he shouldn’t have let Sabo open the Book of the Dead, let alone read from it. He had a bad feeling about that too, yet he couldn’t place his finger on it, simply knowing that nothing good would come of it. Yet he still let them do it, let them convince him that he was being silly and superstitious. Now they were stuck here, separated from one another, in the chaos and panic that unfolded at the camp when they discovered an empty sarcophagus and dead bodies of their two colleagues who looked like they had been mummified alive. And it turned out that now they had a rogue undead mummy risen from the grave, killing everyone in sight and apparently bringing its curse upon the world.

Ace rounded another corner and cursed under his breath again as he faced another dead end. Unfortunately, though, he couldn’t stop in time and ran straight into the wall and hit his shoulder, but instead of just bouncing painfully back the wall moved on the impact sent Ace to the other side of it.

He barely managed to regain his footing rather ungracefully, almost landing on his face. Movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and when he turned his head towards it he wished he hadn’t done, because the sight that greeted him chilled his blood.

There, right before him, stood the newly awakened mummy, holding Alex, his colleague, by the throat and literally sucking the life out of him. He watched horrified as in mere seconds the mummy dried his colleague’s body to skin and bones, rejuvenating his own rotting bones and muscle tissues in the process. The sight was grotesque. Ace had seen many unpleasant things in his life – he and his brothers had a knack for getting themselves into trouble more often than not – however, this was something else.

Disgust and horror gripped Ace’s body as he watched his colleague being killed. He tried to move back, pushing the wall behind him, trying to make it open back up, but this time it was not having it, appearing to be a one-way entry. Just his luck to be stuck alone with a life-sucking mummy!

He looked around frantically, panicking internally and searching for an escape. His back pressed against the wall in futile attempt to make it move, even if he knew damn well it wouldn’t.

“Ankhreshet?” he whipped his head round at the sound of a raspy voice so fast he almost got whiplash. He could feel his body going completely cold as he saw the mummy’s empty eye sockets staring right at him. Ace wasn’t a feeble man in any shape or form. He knew how to fight and defend himself and could land a pretty good punch on guys who were several times bigger than him, however he wasn’t stupid and knew how to pick his battles. This was beyond him, and he had no chance.

As the creature continued to move towards him, he began to feel more and more claustrophobic. He had an urge to wail out of frustration like a wounded animal backed into a corner. He tried to move away from the creature as far as he could, sliding along the wall before he was stuck in a corner with the creature looming over him, no escape in sight. The mummy blocked his path, not that he thought he had a chance to begin with. He felt his legs going weak. He only experienced that kind of fear only one time before in his life. After the fire broke out in their house, Sabo had got badly burned and needed surgery on one side of his body. He almost died that day and the thought of losing Sabo or Luffy was unbearable for Ace. At least he hoped that they would be able to escape the city before the creature got its hands on them. Better him than them.

The mummy stopped right before him and when it reached out its bony arm towards him Ace turned away and shut his eyes, knowing what was about to happen and not wanting to witness it. He’d rather imagine the faces of his brothers before he died.

However, instead of being gripped by the throat and life being sucked out of him like he expected, he felt cold and slightly moist fingers brush against his cheek. He involuntarily jumped at the contact. The touch was gentle and completely out of place. A shiver went down his spine as Ace felt those fingers slide along his jaw and down his neck. It made him think that maybe it liked to play with its victims before killing them, which made the whole situation even worse – he’d rather die fast and be done with it.

His nerves were tingling; he could still physically feel the mummy’s fingers on his skin even as it moved on to gently brush the stray lock of his curly hair behind his ear. His eyes shot open as it gently but firmly gripped him by the chin, forcing him to look it in the eye.

Whatever he had expected to see, it wasn’t that.

“Do not fear me.” it said in ancient Egyptian, it’s voice was gruff and raspy. It spoke slowly as if it was trying out its vocal cords that were probably not in the best of shape, judging by the state of its body.

Obviously, what it said did very little at calming Ace down; all it did was make him confused. What did it want from him if not to kill him?

“W-what… do you want?” he could read ancient Egyptian with no problem, but it was one thing to work with ancient texts and hieroglyphs and quite other to work an actual conversation in a dead language. Everything that was happening didn’t make sense!

He got even more confused when he saw the features on its face softening. It’s gaze, even with hollow sockets and rotten flesh, read sad and full of longing as it stared at him.

“You,” it said simply, making the little hairs on the back of Ace’s neck stand.

“Why don’t you kill me, then?” He knew he probably shouldn’t be so bold, but beating around the bush was never his thing, despite how many times it had gotten him in trouble in the past.

“I do not wish to harm you, Ankhreshet.” It attempted to pull its mouth into something akin to a smile, although it only succeeded in making Ace feel even more uncomfortable and disturbed, and he didn’t like where it was going at all.

Gentle touches and those looks. Ace knew those looks. That was how one looks at the person they love. Ace wasn’t an idiot; he was able to connect the dots and realize that this mummy was confusing him for someone else.

“I-I’m not who you think I am,” he said quietly, not being able to look into its face. That was probably a nail in his coffin of his own doing. Perhaps he had seen too many horror movies to know that this sort of thing never went down well with evil spirits and alike. To his surprise, which shouldn’t even be a surprise, considering he shouldn’t be judging this like a cheesy horror movie, the creature smiled again (or at least attempted to) and this time leaned in so close that their faces were mere inches apart.

“Aren’t you?” Ace’s breath caught in his throat and before he could retaliate, the creature grabbed him around the waist. He gasped and stared in complete shock as everything around him started to transform before his very eyes. The walls around him changed from dusty and faded to become new as if just built and freshly painted. The corridors were brighter and everything around him had more color. It didn’t look like a dig that was abandoned for several thousand years, it looked as if they were sent back in time.

But most importantly the mummy in front of him shifted from decomposing flesh to a man from his visions! The tall, blond high priest with the weird hairstyle that he saw in his dreams was right before him, and all Ace could do was stare in astonishment.

“You…” was all he could say, still in shock. He must be dreaming, surely. This just couldn’t be happening. But it looked and felt real – he could feel the man’s arms around his waist, but they didn’t feel cold or moist anymore, as they had been moments ago. They felt warm, human. The man smiled again as he lifted one hand to cup Ace’s cheek and gently brush his thumb along his cheekbone. The look in his eyes made Ace’s legs go weak, but this time it wasn’t with fear.

This man has plagued his dreams ever since he was a teenager. He would never admit it to anyone, but he even jerked off to those dreams when he was awake. He felt disgusted every time he would wake up from a dream where similar scenarios would play out with the pharaoh. Even if he knew it wasn’t actually happening, it still made him feel violated and dirty. He would spend at least hour and a half in the shower afterwards, trying to scrub the invisible hands off him.

But with this man…he relished those dreams. Every look, every touch… just thinking about it would make Ace hot all over. He had never met a man in his life that could actually make him feel like this man could. He knew it was ridiculous; he’d had multiple failed relationships simply because they couldn’t fill the void that his visions had created. Every single man he dated just wasn’t enough to make him forget and it was absurd, he knew it, to be in love with a man he saw in his visions.

“Stay with me.” and by god Ace wished he could. The man being a cursed mummy be damned; all Ace could think about was having those full lips on his and those big, strong hands roaming his body, making him tremble with want like they did in his dreams.

As if reading his mind, the man leaned down and captured his lips in a soft kiss. Simple, just lips pressed together and nothing more, yet Ace could feel a spark of electricity going through his body. He wanted more. He grabbed the man by his face and angled their mouths so he could deepen the kiss. He licked over the man’s lower lip before pulling at it with his teeth gently, earning a deep, throaty growl from the man. Without warning the man plunged his tongue into Ace’s mouth, making Ace moan and part his lips, giving the blond man access to lick and map his mouth as he pleased. And Ace didn’t mind in the slightest. He threw his hands around the man’s neck, bringing their bodies even closer. He moaned again as he felt those large arms on his waist moving downwards towards his hips and squeezing them firmly.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

They both jumped as they broke apart to look in the direction where the shout came from, only to see Sabo and Luffy both looking terrified and shocked. That brought Ace back to reality, breaking the spell that he was under and remembering what was actually happening. The mummy roared at his brothers, ready to advance at them, but Ace intercepted it, getting in its way and grabbing it by the shoulders.

“Nay, I’ll stay with you! Just don’t hurt them.” He pleaded, looking into its eyes. “Please.”

“What the hell are you doing, Ace? Get away from it!” He could feel Sabo’s furious gaze on his back, no doubt angry and scared that he has gotten himself into more trouble already.

“It’s fine Sabo, just go!” he pleaded with his brother, hoping he’d listen.

He didn’t.

“What do you mean, ‘it’s fine’? What the hell is this?” Ace couldn’t blame him really – he would’ve reacted the same if either of them were in his place – but as their big brother it was his duty to protect them.

“Yeah, we ain’t going anywhere without you, Ace. And I’m ready to fight that damn mummy!” Of course he was! Luffy just had to chime in his own two cents; it didn’t help that both of his brothers were extremely stubborn and overprotective, just like he was. It was beyond frustrating.

“No, guys, you don’t understand—” He wasn’t able to finish his sentence as he was grabbed around the waist again. The second he looked into the mummy’s eyes the world went black and he slipped into oblivion.

Before anyone could react, the mummy picked Ace up bridal style, engulfed them both in sand and disappeared, leaving two distraught and horrified brothers behind.

The creature walked slowly through the dusty corridors of an empty temple, gently cradling the body in its arms. It laid Ace down onto the ritual table with the same reverence, softly brushing his cheek with its fingers.

________________________________________________________________

“I am willing to be a monster and set the world ablaze, if it means we’ll be together again, my love,” it rasped as it watched Ace sleeping soundly, blissfully unaware of his predicament and what the future held for him.

#marcoace #marcoaceweek2019 #marcoaceweek #marcoace week 2019 #portgas d. ace #marco the phoenix #the mummy au #ritawrites

50 notes · View notes

skarletterambles · 5 years

Text

Mummy re-(re-re-re-)watch blog

Because sometimes self-care is rewatching your favorite movie for the first time in many years, I’m currently enjoying The Mummy (1999) on a nice big flat screen TV and eating pizza. Life is good.

Random thoughts typed while watching (so expect typos) below...

[Disclaimers: Obviously, this post contains massive spoilers for a 20-year-old movie, if anyone actually needs to be told that. There are spoilers for The Mummy Returns, as well. Also, I’m an unapologetic Imhotep fangirl so don’t expect me to talk about him like he’s some kind of villain. That’s just silly! Ahem. I have the hots for Rick and Ardeth, too, though, so the drool will be spread out a bit.]

..............................

Imhotep’s priests really got the raw end of the deal. They were just there to watch the door and make sure nobody interrupted their boss’ booty call, and they ended up witnessing regicide and then getting mummified alive. Dang.

I bet the noise of the battle with all those horses and guns above him irritated Imhotep. No wonder he sent sand jets up to scare away Rick and the others. Damn kids, get off my lawn--er, necropolis!

Honestly, the havoc Evy wreaked on her library only made it look slightly worse than my workplace this summer. :p At least she didn’t have to worry about DVD shelving... [Only I get this reference, but trust me, to me it’s hilarious, in a “if I don’t laugh I’ll cry” kind of way.]

Rick is damn good-looking when he’s all bedraggled and beat up, and even better looking when he cleans up. The look on Evy’s face when she sees him after a haircut and a change of clothes, well... Same, girl. Same.

Beni is one of my favorite comic relief characters of all time.

The Med-Jai wouldn’t have threatened Evy on the boat if they knew she was the reincarnation of their long-dead boss’ daughter. I’m picturing Seti in the afterlife facepalming...

I had forgotten how hostile and scary the Med-Jai were at first.

It’s amazing how much of the dialogue comes back to me, though. Even throwaway background lines like Jonathan complaining about the price of the camels.

Evy’s sheer joy over everything camel-related is so freaking adorable.

That first chitter of scarab beetles...my least favorite part of the movie. Heh.

I can just imagine Imhotep in his sarcophagus, feeling the first hint of movement around him in over 3,000 years, and then freaking out as his sarcophagus falls through the ceiling and goes THUMP on the ground. And then there’s screaming and everyone leaves. He’d be like, WTF?

“He must have been someone of great importance...or someone who did something very naughty.” Both correct, Evy...

It’s so not fair that Ardeth can be that drop-dead sexy-looking and have such a sexy voice.

And here’s that “I...AM A LIBRARIAN!” line that everyone in my line of work loves so much. Heehee...

Mummy: *bursts out of sarcophagus* Evy: “Gah, I hate it when these things do that!” LMAO

Of course Imhotep scratched “Death is only the beginning” into the inside of his sarcophagus lid like a bored emo kid in study hall.

“If you dry that fella out you might be able to sell ‘im for firewood!” As I’m sure the writers knew, they actually did burn mummies to fuel trains back in less enlightened times. And grind them up for medicine and paint and all kinds of stupid, disrespectful things.

I love how they refer to Imhotep as “our friend” and “our guy” when they’re discussing how horrible his curse was. That sympathy fades quickly enough once they meet him, though.

“Probably got a little too frisky with the Pharaoh’s daughter.” No, Rick, that’s you. Bwahahahaha!

“No harm ever came from reading a book.” Evy, you’re a librarian. You should know better.

Poor Imhotep must have been so stiff after not moving for a few thousand years. I bet he had to do some stretches before he went looking for people to drain life force from.

Forecast for today: mostly sunny with a 90% chance of locust plague.

Gotta love Imhotep’s one-track mind. Woke up for the first time in 3k years, just regained sight and speech, and the first freaking thing he does is assume the first woman he sees is Anck-su-Namun. Because of course he does.

I wonder if Ardeth got any backlash from the rest of the Med-Jai for giving the interlopers a chance to leave Hamunaptra. If he had just slaughtered them all the previous night, none of this mess would have happened.

“He will never eat. He will never sleep. He will never stop.” Awwwwwyeah.

Because he looks so rotted, Imhotep looks threatening as he slowly advances on Beni, but if he was fully regenerated I bet his expression would have been confused and even slightly amused at Beni’s religious roulette, something along the lines of “WTF is this idiot doing?”

Imhotep, did you really need to wear a mask to meet a blind guy? (I know, I know, he needed the disguise to get through the hotel, but it’s still funny.)

He was even polite enough to thank Evy for saving him from undeath. What a nice mummy!

Med-Jai discussing Imhotep and Anck-su-Nam: “Even after 3,000 years, he’s still in love with her.” Evy: “Well, that’s all very romantic, but...” Me: “Yes. Yes it is. Shut up.”

“You came back from the desert with a new friend, didn’t you, Beni?” One of my all-time favorite lines, and one I randomly quoted to my late goldfish, Benny, many times over the years. LOL

Couldn’t Beni have found some better clothes for Imhotep to wear? Those ragged robes make him look like a beggar. Although considering he was running around in nothing but a few wisps of rotten bandages before, they couldn’t afford to be choosy.

The casual way Imhotep chews that scarab beetle that crawled into his mouth is such a power move. LMAO

The longing in his voice as he whispers Anck-su-Namun’s name almost makes up for the fact that he kissed Evy right afterward. I know you’re impatient to get your girlfriend back, man, but control yourself. :p

Another classic bit: Evy, trying to translate hieroglyphics: “Patience is a virtue!” Rick, looking at incoming torch-bearing mob: “Not right now it isn’t!”

The crowds chanting “Im-ho-tep” are so iconic, and the way they part to let him pass gives me shivers.

“It’s the creature!” Thanks for the reminder, as he’s now fully regenerated and looking damn fine.

OMG that little smirk Imhotep gives to Rick as he turns to walk away with Evy... Imhotep isn’t stupid. He can see Rick’s in love with her.

Ardeth wearing that flight cap and goggles, grinning as he rides on the plane’s wing, is the funniest damn thing in the movie. It’s such a departure from his usual demeanor, which is what makes it work so well from a comedic perspective.

Why did Imhotep stop the sand vortex so far from Hamunaptra? He could have deposited himself, Beni, and Evy on the doorstep, but instead he stopped on the other end of the valley. I mean, sure, it gives plenty of room for the famous sand wall attack scene, but it was still weird.

Evy: “Stop it! You’ll kill them!” Beni: “That’s the idea.” Well...YEAH!

Beni to Imhotep: “I loved the, uh, sand wall trick, it was beautiful. Bastard.” That’s funny enough, and then you remember that Imhotep doesn’t understand English, and it’s even funnier. Stop trying to brown-nose a man who doesn’t speak your language, Beni!

The whole Winston subplot always seemed so pointless. Just deus ex machina to get the airplane in there. Honestly, that’s my only complaint about the movie.

Yeah, Imhotep, you had better bow back when your newly-risen priests bow to you. You owe them big time after the shitstorm you dragged them into.

OMG Ardeth is even more gorgeous in the glow of gold artifacts. Heehee...

And then some of Imhotep’s priests barely rise from the ground before being mowed down by machine gun fire. Damn, they get the short end of the stick every time, don’t they?

One second I’m like, “Oh hai Anck. You need to moisturize better, lawl,” and then the next Imhotep strokes her face with such tenderness and whispers her name and I’m like, “Awwwww!” That’s what’s so much fun about these movies. There’s the silly, campy fun intertwined with actually poignant, emotional moments, in perfect balance.

I just noticed that Anck-Su-Namun’s reaction to being resurrected both in the prologue and later as a mummy was the same gasp and fluttering of her hands over her collarbone. Neat detail.

There’s this little glimmer of “Whoa, cool, I did that!” sometimes when Imhotep uses his powers. It’s adorable. (Yes, I just called an undead plague-bringer summoning mummified soldiers to kill his enemies “adorable.” I warned you in the disclaimer.)

I love how Anck-su-Namun’s first response when waking up was to try to beat the crap out of Evelyn/Nefertiri. Old habits die hard, y’know. She was probably disappointed that her opponent didn’t remember the old ways of combat...yet.

I hate that poor Imhotep had to watch the love of his life be killed in silhouette twice.

And again he promises, “Death is only the beginning.”

Then it’s time for one last moment of Ardeth being hot beyond all reason, some Rick and Evy kisses, Jonathan getting a face full of camel breath, and a happy ending for at least those four characters. ;)

The end...for now!

#the mummy

4 notes · View notes

jakelace · 6 years

Text

2017 IN FILM - PART 1 (84-71)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year again! No, not Christmas. It’s Awards Season, my friends. The time of year where we look back at the films that graced cinemas over the calendar year, and where, just like last year, I tell you all about every new movie I saw in that time. With the announcement of the Academy Awards nominees I’ve decided that we’ll begin our journey today with the worst of the worst that 2017 had to offer. Over the course of the year I saw 84 films. Some were good, some were bad, and still others had Emoji in the title, so without any further ado, my ranked list of every 2017 movie I’ve seen.

84. The Emoji Movie

“We’re number two! We’re number two!”

The Emoji Movie, despite being at the bottom of my rankings, is not the worst movie of 2017. That’s because this ninety minute misstep isn’t a film, it’s an advertisement. While it might seem silly to make such a distinction (there is a plot that actually makes a shred of sense, it’s at least feature length, etc.), it’s incredibly hard to get past just how often this advertisement detours from its central plot just to make a cheap and out of touch product placement for an outdated app like Candy Crush. The Emoji Movie’s greatest offense, however, is when it tries to capitalize on the inherent meme culture that surrounded itself from the pre-production stage by creating a new dance called ‘The Emoji Pop’, that I am absolutely certain they thought was going to catch on with the youth of the world. Sony Pictures Animation’s latest cash-grab is an unoriginal, unfunny, and morally questionable mess. At least the animation is decent?

83. Unforgettable

“There was a time when I thought we were on the road to getting back together...but then he met you.”

Here it is, my lowest rated film of 2017! While a lot of times a movie can be bad for being incoherent, unoriginal, or offensive, I often say that the worst sin a film can commit is being boring. Unforgettable commits that sin. While I can admire Rosario Dawson’s commitment to this truly awful retread of the “crazy ex-wife” trope that was popularized by every Lifetime movie ever, its Katherine Heigl’s performance that makes the film somewhat endurable. It’s over the top in all of the best “so bad it’s good” ways. After thirty minutes of being bored out of my mind I found the best way to get through this cinematic torture was to watch for the next hilariously overacted bit of poorly written dialogue that would come out of Heigl’s mouth. In the end though, you can’t blame her for trying to make the best out of such a predictable and horribly paced film. Unfortunately it would seem that Unforgettable is by far the most forgettable film of 2017.

82. Phoenix Forgotten

“I just want to apologize to Mike's mom, Josh's mom, and my mom. And I'm sorry to everyone.”

Do you remember Phoenix Forgotten? No? Neither do I...yes I know that’s two jokes about forgettable movies with some form of ‘forget’ in the title in a row, but I just couldn’t help myself. Just like the screenwriters for this film couldn’t help themselves from stealing every plot point in the movie from not only the 1999 horror classic The Blair Witch Project, but also taking several ideas from last year’s sequel; Blair Witch. It’s absolutely shameless how little originality can be found within the film’s eighty minute runtime. The film follows three college high-school students lost in the woods desert, searching for a witch aliens who terrorize a town, while footage from the present day follows the protagonist’s brother sister who is still haunted by the sudden disappearance of their sibling. All of this blatant plagiarism wouldn’t have even been so bad had the movie at least been decent, but who needs to make a good film when you can just ride on the coat tails of a horror film that is already beloved? No other release this year sparked such a passionately heated response from me which shocks myself the most considering I’m not even that big of a fan of The Blair Witch Project in the first place! Oh well...at least they don’t fight about a map in this one...or did they?

81. The Bye Bye Man

“Don’t think it! Don’t say it!”

If Phoenix Forgotten is horrible for being unoriginal, then The Bye Bye Man is horrible for being completely and laughably incompetent in every way. The entire film is based on the premise that if you say or think his name then he will come and...make you go bye-bye? The rules are completely unclear, and that’s a huge part of the problem. The threat of the Bye Bye Man (I seriously hate that name) is hindered by the fact that it’s impossible to understand what his powers are. Sometimes he can make our poorly acted main characters see things that aren’t really there. Sometimes he can possess them. Sometimes he can...make them impotent? Who encouraged the thought that that would be a good thing to include in their supernatural horror film? Like, I get it, erectile dysfunction is a serious and scary thing that affects more than three million American men every year, but it’s not really the kind of fear I’m looking for in a movie called The Bye Bye Man. I’d continue to discuss this one, but, I mean, it’s all in the name. Also in this scene from the movie. Enjoy.

80. Amityville: The Awakening

“God gave up on us, sweetheart...”

I had been watching the post-production and release of this film very closely for years before it was eventually released this past October. While that might not seem too out of the ordinary, you have to keep in mind that this was filmed in 2014. That is three years of reshoots and pushed back releases. However, when all seemed bleak and I thought I might never get the chance to watch what was sure to be a glorious train wreck, the film was released to own for free on the Google Play store. However, even with my rock bottom expectations, I was still disappointed by Amityville: The Awakening. While I was expecting something laughably bad, what I got was an end product that was more boring than anything else. And while I haven’t seen any of the other films in the Amityville franchise, I can’t help but feel contempt for its continued use of a real family’s suffering all in the name of making money. I guess it’s a good thing this one only made $742 dollars on its opening weekend then, yeah?

79. Wish Upon

“Hold up, you dig on multiverses?”

One shot. I liked one shot in this entire movie. Everything else is lazily written drivel. It’s not all that hard to get me on board for a movie with Final Destination style deaths. I love how silly and over-the-top those films are, and I’ve always thought that bringing that style of Rube Goldberg death traps into more films could provide for entertaining new ideas. This movie has none of that. Its biggest offenses, however, come when it also tries to tackle the well-worn “be careful what you wish for” message. Besides the weird moment where Joey King’s character wishes that her dad would become cooler which then in turn leads to her friend wanting to to sleep with him, the moral of the story is so trite at this point that even adding a horror element into the mix can’t save this from being nothing but bland. Looks like the director should have wished for a better movie.

78. Rings

“There's a mark on your hand. It says ‘rebirth’.”

If Rings was an attempt to bring the horror franchise into modern technology by presenting Samara’s video as a metaphorical computer virus, or even commenting on the state of internet content as a whole, then this movie completely fails on that front. Seriously, the only time this movie even brings that aspect into play is in the last two minutes of the film. No joke. Everything else up to that point is a senseless retread of the previous two American films in the franchise. On top of that, it is easy to tell that Rings fell victim to countless reshoots and rewrites. There is no finer example of that than the fact that this film has two cold opens. It’s almost as though they had the plane cold open (the one from all of the trailers) from a previous version of the movie and thought it was just so good that they couldn’t leave it on the cutting room floor. If it were up to me I would have left the entire film on the cutting room floor.

77. The Mummy

“Sometimes it does take a monster to fight a monster.”

How do you kill an entire cinematic universe in one fell swoop? Ask The Mummy. Sure, that might be a low blow, but The Mummy is one of the most sorry excuses for a blockbuster I’ve ever seen. When the entire conflict of your entire supernatural action flick can be boiled down to ‘who would Tom Cruise rather sleep with? A mummy or an alive woman’ you know you went wrong somewhere down the line. The worst part about this is that there are moments where you can see where they’re coming from and what they’re trying to accomplish, but they just can’t seem to make any logical sense of it. Scenes are often rushed or dragged on for far too long and it becomes clear that nobody involved had any grasp on how a film should be paced...or written...or acted...or made at all.

76. Rock Dog

“Dad, I’ve decided to become a musician.”

I barely remember this movie. There is a dog. He shoots lasers out of his hands (not kidding). He rocks I’m guessing. I know I watched this, but everything about it was so generic and well-worn that I felt like I had seen this before, just done a lot better. I had never seen laser dog hands before though. Sure the moral about following your dreams and standing up for what you believe in is good, but when it comes to children’s entertainment you can do so much better. Unless you want to see a dog shoot lasers out of his hands. This movie has got you covered on that.

75. Fist Fight

“Teachers can’t fight!”

I wanted to really enjoy Fist Fight. It’s filled to the brim with actors I find quite funny, like Charlie Day, Jillian Bell, and Kumail Nanjiani, but it’s hard for these comedic talents to find anything to work with when the plot for the film is so bare-bones. Outside of the original comedic value in thinking of teachers fist fighting in the schoolyard, it’s hard to find much else to do with that premise. Nothing speaks more to the failure of this film than the fact that I didn’t laugh even once. The story is dumb, the jokes are played out, and worst of all the director wastes some of the best comedic actors in the industry on a movie that barely even functions.

74. Split

“Someone's coming for you, and you're not gonna like it.”

Controversial Opinion Alert! When I first saw Split I felt like I was alone on my island of disapproval of this film. The world seemed to be completely sold on M. Night Shyamalan’s most recent directorial endeavor, but something just felt off to me about it. It took me a few months and discussions with my friend Aaron when he finally cracked the case wide open; while everyone was expecting the film to vilify individuals with mental illness, the exact opposite comes true in the final act. Split goes so far as to glorify mental illness and being ‘broken’ in a way that feels unbelievably gross to me. If you want to read more of my thoughts about the exposition-heavy writing side of the film you can do so here, but I can’t even begin to explain how horrible of a message this is, so let’s just move on, shall we?

73. Sandy Wexler

“You can’t stop a shooting star, scientists have proven this.”

If it weren’t for its ungodly long runtime and constant detours into meaningless garbage, Sandy Wexler might actually be alright. In fact, this film does something that an Adam Sandler film hasn’t done for a very long time: it made me laugh. Sure it was just once and every other attempt at humor is just as overdone and juvenile as anything else he’s made, but a small step in the right direction is still a step. Last year for my ‘year in review’ I covered another Adam Sandler flick called The Do-Over, and in that mini review I called Sandler’s recent string of films a downward spiral in quality and ability. Now, if that was true, then Sandy Wexler is the first step towards getting out of that creative hole he’s found himself in. What can I say? I’m an optimist.

72. Despicable Me 3

“You told me my father died of disappointment the day I was born!”

Despicable Three (yes I’m calling it that and there is nothing anyone can do to stop me) is the same brand of gutter trash we’ve come to expect from Illumination Studios. The story is nonsensical, the animation is sinfully simplistic, and the Minions...my god...the Minions. Once again, I have to ask how Illumination Studios have become so popular with American audiences? I truly do not understand. Every character, every plot line, every joke feels focus tested to death. There is no originality in any of these frames. The heart and soul of the original is gone and replaced with Minions merchandise. Every decision seems to be based around how merchandisable they can make every second of their sensory overloading piece of garbage they have the nerve to call a film. I hate Despicable Three and everything it stands for. That being said, I love hearing Trey Parker’s voice come out of a children’s cartoon.

71. The Circle

“Knowing is good, but knowing everything is better.”

I love how much I hate The Circle. If you’re looking for a basic description of what this YA fiction masterpiece in preaching is all about, then imagine Black Mirror, but remove all of the subtlety and nuance about a world run by tech and replace it with a caveman grunting “technology bad.” There you have it, a screenplay worthy of Tom Hanks and Emma Watson’s time and talent. Just kidding. Why would they ever agree to this? Maybe they too hate the dangers of social media so much that they can look past all the good it can do. The worst part about it all though is that the film constantly insults the intelligence of its audience by claiming that there is no healthy middle ground to take between being completely obsessed with technology and living off the grid entirely. Which reminds me? Why are you reading this online? Go make weird deer antler ornaments or something you tech junkie.

That’s all for today, but join me tomorrow as I cover three bombastic blockbusters, two unsettlingly bad thrillers, and one movie about a baby that’s also a boss...no hints.

#the emoji movie #Unforgettable #Phoenix Forgotten #The Bye Bye Man #amityville the awakening #Wish Upon #rings #The Mummy #Rock Dog #Fist Fight #Split #Sandy Wexler #Despicable Me 3 #The Circle

2 notes · View notes

aussie-hermit · 7 years

Text

Today I went and saw Universal's The Mummy, the first in a modern reboot of the Universal Monsters Series, with Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Russell Crowe and Annabelle Wallis.

When I first heard they were doing a modern take of the mummy I was ecstatic, and then I heard they were casting Tom Cruise as the lead and I was less so.

I was worried they were going to try and remake the 1999 one (you know with Brendan Fraser) and they were going to botch it in an attempt for money grabbing. The very first mummy film - the 1932 black and white film with Boris Karloff - and the 1999 adventure film are the ones I treasure very deeply and you can’t meddle or try to rewrite these. No doubt their attempt to reboot the classics such as The Mummy, Frankenstein and other classics of the horror genre can only end in failure.

However, this film was solid - it has flaws don't get me wrong and there could have been things that could have been better written or done better but as the first rebooted classic monster film it was good.

I'll touch on what I liked and what I thought makes this film worth watching and what I didn't like before suggesting what I think might have made it even better.

And please be warned, SPOILERS BELOW

What I liked:

- They didn't mess with the classic Imhotep story but built from it The story of Imhotep's love for Anck-su-Namun is the driving force of the 1932 and the 1999 Mummy stories, so you can’t mess with this story. I was worried they would try to change it but instead they borrowed the concept of it which I loved. Ahmanet basically sells her soul to the Egyptian god Set for power after her half brother is born, essentially removing her as heir to the throne. She then kills her father, his son and mother. As she is about to bring Set into the world through a human sacrifice she is mummified alive and buried in a secret tomb - and seriously they had plenty of warning signs around that tomb that screamed 'DO NOT LET HER OUT!'. But of course when she is released, she has chosen Nick (Tom Cruise) as her 'Chosen One' who will be sacrificed to bring Set into the world and sets out on the war path to accomplish this. So it follows the same basic plot of the original mummy story but isn't rewriting it.

- They did some research I was ecstatic when I found out Ahmanet was the mummy, she's actually a deity in the Egyptian mythology so the fact they looked into the mythology for inspiration of who this mummy could be made me happy. And also there is a Crusader tomb - based off an actual crusade into Egypt in the 1100's I believe - which plays an important role in the story, especially since they stole and hid something crucial to the story.

And Set was not the god of death but of chaos and violence - this annoyed me but in the grand scheme of things....I will moderately ignore this.

- Sofia Boutella as Ahmanet

Sofia Boutella! She was my main motivation to see this movie, and she did not let down! She was fantastic as Ahmanet. She was a beautiful, terrifying and powerful villain and I loved her!

- The effects The effects of the mummies was top notch, they looked like a real desiccated corpses and their movements were insanely creepy. This really brought an element of horror.

- Russell Crowe as Henry Jekyll Bit iffy about Russell's role in the film but he was perfect as Jekyll! He's sort of rounding up all these 'evil' things to study, contain and destroy them and he keeps medicating himself to stop him from turning into Mr Hyde, whom he also plays as really well. I'd really like a prequel that explores how he came into the position he's in, in this film and how he developed a medicine to keep his alter ego at bay.

- His dead mate comes back to haunt This reminded me of An American Werewolf in London and I wouldn't be surprised if that's where they got inspiration for it. So Nick's friend Chris (Jake Johnson from New Girl) gets bitten by a big ass spider in the tomb, which no one even considers looking at, and becomes a zombie who Nick ultimately kills. Cue post plane crash, and he begins to haunt Nick, sometimes just being a smart ass but more or less to help. He does get revived at the end but I wished they had more scenes of Chris being a little smart ass that only Nick could hear.

- The Easter Eggs Now when I noticed these I was bouncing in my seat, in this place where they're keeping all these 'evil' things you see a skull with vampire teeth and I noticed a preserved hand of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I need films of this ASAP. Also when Jenny is trying to save Nick from Hyde she hits the guard with a gold book, specifically the Book of Amun-Ra from the 1999 film. This means that the 1999 story exists within this universe and makes me monumentally happy. In the next installment I demand a cameo of Brendan Fraser as an old and tired Rick O'Connell. What I didn't like:

- Flat main characters Tom Cruise's character didn't have enough depth for me and I found him quite boring. He was a marine who looted stuff from sites he shouldn't have been at and sold them on the black market - that's pretty much his entire background I got. I didn't feel any sympathy for his character or that he had anything driving him. I liked Wallis' character Jenny more than Cruise's, she slapped Nick and didn't put up with any of his shit and she caught onto the fact that by removing Ahmanet's sarcophagus from the tomb was a terrible idea first. She was the only smart one! However this was all overshadowed by the fact that Jenny was only used as a plot device - he stole her map after a one night stand which led them to the tomb, she's the reason he won't join Ahmanet and when she's killed he only then willingly becomes a sacrifice to bring her back. If they had moved beyond this I think her character would have been stronger.

What I would improve:

This might annoy some people but I think if they had made either Nick or Jenny of Egyptian descent it would have given the characters and the story more depth.

Hear me out.

If Jenny was a Egyptian archaeologist she is then given a degree of motivation to protect historical and cultural artifacts of her ancestry. Also gives more tension between Jenny and Nick - he steals artifacts of significance to sell on the black market, not really any different than the British taking artifacts from Egypt. Bonus is if she's still not used as a plot device.

If Nick had Egyptian ancestry but was removed from the culture - say his mother is Egyptian but his father is American and/or raised in America where he is surrounded by modern American culture - would be interesting. Like maybe his grandmother told him stories and such and is his only real connection to Egypt but he still becomes a thief and sells artifacts on the black market. Throws it in Jenny's face that white people did it for years so she can stop acting high and mighty, or something similar.

Just by adding Egyptian ancestry maintains a connection to the Egyptian culture, not just through the mummy. Pretty much after the opening where they explain Ahmanet and leave the tomb having found her, I found a lack of connection to the Egyptian culture.

This is where the 1999 film did better, even though the main cast was primarily Caucasian they had significant connections to Egypt and the culture.

It also adds in tension outside the romantic option which in this film I felt was unnecessary, maybe if they had handled it differently I'd be fine with it.

These are just my opinions and thoughts, you can agree, disagree or whatever.

Overall it was a solid film, with some flaws and things that could have been done better but still entertaining and a good start for a reboot of the Universal Monsters.

I give it 6.5/7 out of 10

#the mummy #the mummy 2017 #copperdragon #my review #movie review #review

15 notes · View notes

the-scot-blog1 · 7 years

Photo

Scrolling through Twitter one afternoon, I stumbled upon an amazing little feature by blogger Liam McNally – he had posted a text post with a number of different film titles from each year of his life. Bloody brilliant.

So I’ve decided to give it a go. I’ve been on this wonderful planet for almost 19 years now, and although I wasn’t alive for the release of Jurassic Park, there have been a fair few phenomenal films in my lifetime.

This is my longest post to date – I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. (2730 words – bloody hell).

1998: Pleasantville

Oh my God. I didn’t realise how difficult this post was until I searched ‘1998 films’ into Google. The Trueman Show, Saving Private Ryan and The Wedding Singer all in the one year? God, anyone alive and kicking back then must have been having the best year of their lives.

But despite the 10 minute long decision process, I’ve decided on Pleasantville. I watched it when I was very young and hadn’t ever worn a bra, much less watched anything like that bath scene. Despite my mortified eyes however, the film will always be one of my favourites. I remember seeing the main character for the first time and just constantly thinking god, this is a weird film for Spiderman and Elle Woods to be in.

1999: 10 Things I Hate About You

Again, this year is bloody difficult. The Iron Giant, The Mummy and Toy Story 2 – they just don’t make films like them anymore. Although I wasn’t a fan of Star Wars Episode 1 – it has to be one of my least favourites. Anyway.

10 Things I Hate About You was one of the first chick-flicks I ever watched. I knew Heath Ledger as ‘the strangely cute singing guy from that movie’ before I knew him as the Joker. I felt like I related to Kat – I wasn’t big on getting a boyfriend, and I was pretty much destined to be a wee bit strange since birth. Plus her name is so cool.

2000: X-Men

At the time of watching, I was right into Harry Potter. I loved the idea of special schools dedicated to supernatural people – it made my own secondary school even more boring. I’d often just sit in class and daydream about being able to fly or have the ability to imitate people.

But in all honesty, the one person I was most envious of was Quicksilver. And not because I wanted to save the world or any of that pish. No. When I sat in my third year physics class, the smells from the cafeteria always decided to sneak up the vent and attack my nostrils. I would get so unbelievably hungry, and my stomach would always tell my classmates just that. So I used to daydream about running faster than time, sprinting down into the dining hall, grabbing a steaming hot spicy chicken panini (and maybe some soup, if I could manage) and munching it before heading back up to class. Yeah – I wanted superpowers so I could eat my lunch early.

2001: The Princess Diaries

AH. I’ve got a feeling film directors are deliberately messing with me right now. Legit, I had a look at the films from 2001, and I was floored. What an amazing year. The first Harry Potter movie came out this year – the beginning of an absolute era. Shrek debuted as well – but I was always slightly offended when people heard my Scottish accent and compared me to a giant green ogre when I travelled abroad. The first Lord of the Rings film came out as well – see what I mean about them messing with me?

But despite all of my favourite film franchises beginning in this year, I gotta say, the Anne Hathaway/Julie Andrews combo that is The Princess Diaries absolutely stole my heart. I had never related to a character more – I had frizzy hair, buck teeth, oversized glasses and a tendency to prioritise spending time with my cat over hanging out with real-life friends. So when she went through her beautiful princess transformation, I was floored. I mean, I’m still waiting for that to officially happen, but I’m still holding out hope that I have a long lost relative that’s gonna tell me I’m a princess (no, not you mum).

2002: The Pianist

Originally, I had written the first Spiderman as my favourite film of 2002. But that quickly changed.

The first time I watched The Pianist, I was 13 years old in a stuffy history classroom. I still hold the belief that this was definitely not the right time to watch this film. It felt as though my teacher didn’t have any material to convey how horrific the Holocaust really was, and so instead she stuck on one of the most distressing and hauntingly beautiful films of all time. I didn’t fully appreciate it back then – I cried when I watched the horrors that took place in the ghettos, and got even more upset when immature people around me started to laugh.

But I watched it for a second time a few years later. Although I cried again, I gained a much deeper understanding of the film. I still listen to the soundtrack when I want to write a particularly moving or sad chapter of a book. The film has such a disgusting beauty to it, it is astounding – it makes me question my morals when I say it is one of my favourite films.

2003: Peter Pan

Again, there were so many amazing films this year – I can’t explain my guilt at not choosing Finding Nemo or the last instalment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

But I found my first love in the live-action remake of Peter Pan. Just a few years after it was released, I found myself watching it time and time again. I was young, and there was a boy with messy hair and a fairy to keep him company. Honestly, I was head over heels. I grew to absolutely despise Wendy Darling. How dare she take away my Peter, with her stupid bow and annoying accent. And the fact that Lucius Malfoy was Captain Hook just made it that little bit better.

2004: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

You’re lying if you say that this isn’t one of your favourite films.

Again, it was tricky not choosing The Incredibles or Mean Girls – even The Notebook made it to my shortlist. But the way the Weasley twin’s hair sat and the introduction of the marauders just made my life complete. Except for Pettigrew. Fuck you, Pettigrew. I’d read the book before I saw the film, and while I was slightly disappointed with the previous two, I didn’t stop talking about PoA for months. In fact, I still talk about it. It’s great.

2005: Sky High

This year was going to be beautifully simple – I absolutely love Star Wars Episode III. In fact, it was possibly the only film I was certain of when I started this post. But, never the less, I looked at the list of 2005 films anyway, and was reminded of the best thing I’ve ever watched. Ever.

Remember earlier in the post when I said that I frickin LOVE schools for supernatural people? WELL HERE WE GO AGAIN. I watched Sky High recently with my friend Ross, and even although the acting was abysmal and my cringe levels were off the chart, I couldn’t help but smile. As if the flying school bus wasn’t enough, the euphoria I felt when Will and Warren won Save the Citizen was something I don’t think I’ll ever feel again.

2006: Pan’s Labyrinth

I feel like if I choose any film other than this, my Spanish teacher would kill me. Again, it’s another film that we watched at way too young an age in my opinion. Sure, it looks all mystical with fairies and creepy monsters with eyeball hands, but it has this underlying story-line of the horrors of war and escapism that you can’t fully understand until you’re a bit older.

I watched it again when I was 17 and studying Advanced Higher Spanish, and knew the film as ‘El Laberinto del Fauno’. I could go on for 20 minutes about this film and its director (which I did by the way, in the final exam).

2007: Ratatouille

WHAT A FILM BTW. I’ve always loved Disney – my sister and I would spend nights staying up way past our 8pm bedtime watching Aladdin and Peter Pan, with a fair few stolen After Eight mints from my mum’s bedroom too. This film just completely blew me away – the animation was new and cool and it was set in PARIS.

Even now, ten years later (omg ten years wtf) I still think about the scene where Remy combines the cheese and grapes, and little fireworks and swirls form in his mind. I once ate a McDonald’s chip and then took a sip of my strawberry milkshake, and legit I’m pretty sure that’s what happened in my mind.

2008: The Chronicles of Narnia – Prince Caspian

Enter stage left – my second love. At the age of nine, Prince Caspian had everything I could ever want in a guy (or so I thought). He had a sword, long hair, an accent I had never heard before and he fought Peter Pevensie (I seem to hate a whole lot of Peters).

I thought it was the coolest combination of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and it was while watching this that I began to have a crisis about my true Hogwarts house. I had always thought myself a Gryffindor – I had the scarf, the pens and the egotistical ‘I’m-better-than-you’ attitude that all young Gryffs seem to adopt. But I found myself siding with Edmund Pevensie about a whole lot of things. I didn’t fully accept Slytherin as my true house till a good few years later.

2009: Star Trek

I watched Star Trek before I even touched Star Wars, and I was absolutely hooked. It was what introduced me to science fiction, really. After Star Trek, I moved onto Doctor Who, and although I couldn’t really get into the Star Trek TV series, I found my love of sci-fi growing.

It was my love of Star Trek that caused me to accidentally find Star Wars. My brother would constantly go on about C3PO and lightsabers, and I decided very early on that it wasn’t for me. But after trying (and failing) to find Star Trek online, I accidentally found Star Wars instead, and thus began my love of the Skywalkers and giant wookies named Chewy.

2010: How To Train Your Dragon

Other than Aladdin, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was one of my first (of many) cartoon crushes. I thought he was the most adorable lil guy ever – he was clumsy, dorky, and absolutely loved animals. He was perfect. I thought the animation was absolutely incredible, and the Scottish accents were just a bonus. I much preferred being compared to Gerard Butler than a green ogre, in all honesty.

And don’t even get me started on how he looked in How To Train Your Dragon 2 – oaft.

2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two

HPDHP2 is right up there with the Prisoner of Azkaban. I remember heading to the midnight release of the last Harry Potter book – I was decked out in a Scream robe that we’d stitched a Gryffindor badge onto, with curly hair that reached my shoulders. And yes, I won the costume contest. But I remember staying up that night and reading the book until 7am, and having to head to school the next day without a wink of sleep. And yet I didn’t care – I had just finished the last book in a series that completely shaped my childhood.

So when the movie hit the cinema screens, I was praying that I wouldn’t be disappointed like I was with some of the others. And apparently, my prayers were answered. Even although the Deathly Hallows is split into two parts, I always consider them the one film. And it’s most certainly my favourite.

2012: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

This film really got to me. I bundled up in warm clothes to see it in the cinema with my friend Ailish, and it was the first ever film I had cried at. I’d read the book before hand and cried my eyes out, but the severity and meaning of the story didn’t hit me until I watched the film. Logan Lerman and Emma Watson were two of my favourite stars at the time: I knew Emma from Harry Potter obviously, whilst Logan stole my heart as Percy Jackson.

But what struck me most was the way I related to these characters. I often found myself standing next to the wall in school dances, watching people having a good time but being physically incapable of joining in – it was as if my feet were constantly glued to the floor. It was comforting to know that I wasn’t alone in this, and it lead to me being able to open up to my guidance teacher about my struggles with anxiety.

I also wrote about the original book in my piece ’13 books to help get over a break up’ – check it out.

2013: The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug

When the making of the Hobbit was first announced, I was ecstatic. But my excitement somewhat wavered when I heard they were turning into three films. It was a small book – tiny in comparison to the three Lord of the Rings texts – how on earth would they stretch this wonderfully small work into three different films?

And yet somehow, they managed it, and subsequently made one of my favourite films of all time. Why, you ask? The barrel scene.

2014: Guardians of the Galaxy

Not gonna lie, this one was a toss up between the hilarious Chris Pratt and the absolutely adorable Baymax. But, as much as I love Disney’s tale of superpowers and love therapy in Big Hero 6, it didn’t win this year for me. The best thing about the film is without a doubt the soundtrack – even four years later, I still listen to it when I wanna get psyched.

I wanted to cosplay as Gamora for last year’s MCM Comic Con in Glasgow so bad, but then I realised that I’d more than likely sweat off the green body paint and the leather would more than likely get quite uncomfortable.

2015: Star Wars – The Force Awakens

Up until 2015, I was losing interest in Star Wars. I’d watched the films countless times, but as much as I adored them, I couldn’t stop thinking about the shabby effects. So when Finn, Poe and Rey lit up my local cinema screen in December 2015, it was as if I was born again. I suddenly dived back into the world of lightsabers and gun-wielding Wookies, and I genuinely haven’t looked back since.

And although I cried my eyes out when that thing happened, I agreed with it – it was about time.

2016: Finding Dory

I actually travelled Australia for a month last year – I left school and just decided to get away from everything and everyone for a little while. So after I met my brother and we began to explore Sydney, we decided what better place to watch the latest instalment in Finding Nemo than the place where it’s set??

I was slightly disappointed to find out that Nemo and Dory did not, in fact, stay in Sydney for the duration of the film, but even so – it was just amazing.

I was going to write a segment for 2017 but then I realised – I legit haven’t watched any new releases yet. I’ve simply not had any time. And yes, that means that I haven’t even watched the new Beauty and the Beast. For shame.

But even although I haven’t watched anything yet, there are tonnes of films that I’m looking forward to – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, Spiderman Homecoming, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi to name a few.

Hey, maybe I’ll revisit this post at the end of the year and add in my favourite film.

I’m tagging the fantastic Emily and Lucie in the ‘Film for every year of my life’ tag.

What are your most loved films from these years? Do we share any favourites? Or do you think my choices are just downright wrong? Let me know!

Follow(function(d, s, id) {var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if (d.getElementById(id)) return;js = d.createElement(s);js.id = id;js.src = "https://www.bloglovin.com/widget/js/loader.js?v=1";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, "script", "bloglovin-sdk"))

18 films in 18 years: My favourite stories since I was born was originally published on Ellan

#Ellan blog #Elle Duffy #Scottish bloggers #Scottish blog #Travel blog #Lifestyle blog #Scottish travel #Personal blog #Scottish girl

1 note · View note

theconservativebrief · 6 years

Link

If somebody attempted to do an actual power ranking of all the most popular supernatural creatures, well, that would be stupid, because obviously witches would win. They can do literal magic, and even if the calculations weren’t in their favor they could just like, put a spell on the person doing the math.

But unfortunately, there is no actual way to “do the math” on supernatural beings, because they are not real. What we can do, however, is attempt to determine how much power each of them wield in our cultural consciousness.

To do so, I calculated how much money every major movie about Halloween-y creatures made between 1999 and the present. Why 1999? First of all, it’s almost exactly 20 years ago, which means that it encompasses nearly an entire generation’s worth of taste in film. It also has the benefit of freeing me from comparing the cultural importance of the films from Universal’s genre-defining Classic Monsters era (the original Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, et al) with, say, Nicolas Cage’s witch movie from 2011.

There is also the fact that 1999 happened to be a pretty major year for movies and franchises involving otherworldly beings. The Mummy, The Blair Witch Project, and The Sixth Sense all premiered that year, providing major wins for mummies, witches, and ghosts, respectively.

So without further ado, here’s each of the most popular supernatural creatures, ranked by how much money the movies about them made. An important asterisk here is that films in which multiple kinds of beings play major roles will not be included, which is why you won’t find Harry Potter, Hotel Transylvania, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Dark Shadows, and the like. (Plus, those are relatively lighthearted anyway, and it’s Halloween!) Another important asterisk is that the differences between categories, like ghosts and demons, can sometimes be nebulous, and so if you are particularly riled up about any of these categorizations, please remind yourself that, once again, it’s Halloween.

The following numbers are comprised of a film’s domestic gross only, are not adjusted for inflation, and were pulled from the IMDB-owned Box Office Mojo.

A still from Benicio Del Toro’s 2010 film The Wolfman. IMDB

Poor werewolves. In 20 years, there were only three major movies that featured werewolves prominently, and none of them really made all that much money. And even though Twilight technically stars a shape-shifting werewolf-like teenager, let’s be honest: It’s a vampire movie.

The Wolfman (2010): $61,979,680

Red Riding Hood (2011): $37,662,160

Cursed (2005): $19,297,522

Total: $118,939,362

The mummy in The Mummy. Universal Pictures/IMDB

The Mummy franchise is doing literally all the work here, although a special shoutout to Tom Cruise’s 2017 remake, whose domestic flop Vanity Fair attributes to Cruise’s “vise grip” of control.

The Mummy Returns (2001): $202,019,785

The Mummy (1999): $155,385,488

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008): $102,491,776

The Mummy (2017): $80,227,895

Total: $540,124,944

A still from 2016’s The Love Witch. IMDB

Had we included the Harry Potter franchise here, which at a domestic gross of $2,391,805,822 easily eclipses every other category all by itself, witches would have made it out on top. But despite the fact that they’re easily the coolest of the bunch, the other witch-centric movies of the last generation didn’t quite make the magic happen.

Oz the Great and Powerful (2013): $234,911,825

The Blair Witch Project franchise (1999- 2016): $187,753,254

The Conjuring (2013): $137,400,141

Into the Woods (2014): $128,002,372

Bewitched (2005): $63,313,159

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013): $55,703,475

The Last Witch Hunter (2015): $27,367,660

The Witch (2015): $25,138,705

Season of the Witch (2011): $24,827,228

The Covenant (2006): $23,380,495

The Love Witch (2016): $228,894

Total: $908,027,208

A still from Zombieland. Columbia/Tristar/IMDB

I’ll be honest, I’m a little shocked zombies didn’t do better here. Even after their mid-2000s heyday, zombie movies just kept respawning well into the 2010s. As the BBC argues, their popularity tends to spike in uncertain times: “Zombies embody the great contemporary fear − and, for some people, the great contemporary fantasy − that we’ll soon be surrounded by ravenous strangers, with only a shotgun to defend ourselves. Compared to that, facing a werewolf or a vampire is a breeze.”

Resident Evil franchise (2002-2017): $271,274,006

I Am Legend (2007): $256,393,010

World War Z (2013): $202,359,711

Zombieland (2009): $75,590,286

Warm Bodies (2013): $66,380,662

Dawn of the Dead (2004): $59,020,957

28 Days Later (2002): $45,064,915

28 Weeks Later (2007): $28,638,916

Shaun of the Dead (2004): 13,542,874

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2017): $10,938,134

Total: $1,029,203,471

In The Ring, Samara’s ghost crawls out of a TV.

The fun thing about ghost movies is that there’s a zillion different ways to do them — which is also likely why there’s simply been so many of them. But the one thing that unites them is that one point or another, somebody in the movie has probably had the thought, “I see dead people.” Here, a “ghost” is defined as the spirit of a specific dead person, which separates it from that of a demon.

The Sixth Sense (1999): $293,506,292

The Ring (2002): $233,152,400

What Lies Beneath (2000): $155,464,351

Ghostbusters (2016) : $128,350,574

The Grudge (2004): $110,359,362

The Others (2001): $96,522,687

Gothika (2003): $59,694,580

Thirteen Ghosts (2001): $41,867,960

House on Haunted Hill (1999): $40,846,082

Ghost Ship (2002): $30,113,491

Shutter (2008): $25,928,550

Dark Water (2005): $25,473,352

Pulse (2006): $20,264,436

Total: $1,261,544,117

A still from 2018’s The Nun. Warner Bros./IMDB

There can be some blurriness between what constitutes a demon versus a ghost, but in most cases, a demon is capable of possessing humans, can usually shape-shift, and often come alongside some religious connotations. Films involving the devil are also included in this category.

Paranormal Activity franchise (2009-2015): $401,363,355

Insidious franchise (2010-2018): $257,374,845

The Nun (2018): $116,745,963

This Is the End (2013): $101,470,202

Constantine (2005): $75,976,178

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005): $75,072,454

The Amityville Horror (2005): $65,233,369

The Devil Inside (2012): $53,261,944

Ouija (2014): $50,856,010

The Possession (2012): $49,130,154

Sinister (2012): $48,086,903

Hereditary (2018): $44,069,456

Drag Me To Hell (2009): $42,100,625

Exorcist: The Beginning (2004): $41,821,986

Little Nicky (2000): $39,464,775

Bedazzled (2000): $37,886,980

Devil (2010): $33,601,190

The Rite (2011): $33,047,633

Deliver Us From Evil (2014): $30,577,122

Jennifer’s Body (2009): $16,204,793

The Babadook (2014): $964,413

Total: $1,614,310,350

A still from Twilight. IMDB

To literally nobody’s surprise, vampires have made the most money at US box offices over the past 20 years. This is, of course, solely due to the popularity of Twilight, the YA saga responsible for thousands of sexual awakenings of both its target tween readership and the adult fans of its unauthorized NSFW spinoff, 50 Shades of Grey.

Twilight franchise (2008-2012): $1,365,922,346

Underworld franchise (2003-2016): $252,766,892

Van Helsing (2004): $120,177,084

Blade II (2002): $82,348,319

Blade Trinity (2004): $52,411,906

30 Days of Night (2007): $39,568,996

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012): $37,519,139

Dracula 2000 (2000): $33,022,767

Daybreakers (2009): $30,101,577

Priest (2011): $29,136,626

Fright Night (2011): $18,302,607

Let Me In (2010): $12,134,935

What We Do In the Shadows (2014): $3,469,224

Let the Right One In (2008): $2,122,065

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013): 1,879,534

Total: $2,080,884,017

So yes, vampires made a lot of money over the past twenty years, but what’s interesting is that if we remove the Twilight factor, they’d be somewhere way down between mummies and witches in terms of box office revenue. That means that it’s actually demons and ghosts that have managed to have the most consistent and lasting impact on movie ticket sales.

Supernatural creatures are embodiments of the things we fear or don’t understand, and they rise and fall in trendiness just as any other pop culture phenomenon. The ones that don’t seem to ever go out of style, however, happen to be the ones that many people actually believe in: ghosts and demons.

One 2013 study by Huff Post and YouGov showed that about 45 percent of Americans believed in ghosts, while nearly one in five U.S. adults say they’ve seen or been in the presence of a ghost, according to Pew Research Center. Meanwhile, in a Public Policy Polling survey from 2012, 57% of respondents said that it was possible for humans to be possessed by demons, and a 2016 Gallop poll also shows that 61% of Americans believe in the devil.

As a 2016 piece by Vox’s Aja Romano pointed out, trends in horror movies tend to reflect the cultural fears at the time. That year, home invasion movies were popular, a genre that’s often aimed at white Americans and can be an allegory for xenophobia. Considering the fact that immigration was one of the 2016 election’s most contentious topics, it’s not exactly difficult to see the connection there.

Ghosts and demons, on the other hand? These will be stoking fears for about as long as their average life span — which is to say, for eternity.

Original Source -> Ghosts, witches, zombies: which supernatural creature makes the most money at the box office?

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

0 notes

peanutdracolich · 7 years

Photo

Peanut Dracolich Watches Horror: The Mummy Double Feature

So I didn’t get to write things as I go this time because I was watching things with my nephew. In fact I didn’t get the close attentive viewing I would have liked for the purposes of talking about things because again watching things with a young child who was making faces, and talking.

I did, though, watch both films in time to compare which I and a small child preferred. We actually come out in agreement. He finished one film and left the other bored partway. I am admittedly tired of the old school of horror and want something with more shock and terror (I had intended to watch Ju-On today, but a small child wanted to watch things; on that note at some point I have 4 vampire movies and a Vincent Price one to talk about), but of the two one kept me more entertained as well.

So let’s look at the films. And some strengths and weaknesses:

Universal (1932) The Good:

Boris Karloff is excellent, whether it’s facial expressions while in full mummy wrap or walking around afterwards he is intimidating and has excellent presence. He puts me in mind immediately of one of my favorite actors due to his ability to just present an aura of menace and he is much better used here than as Frankenstein.

The Story Idea: Universal’s Mummy is an intelligent adversary, with magical powers, and fought from afar. It’s an interesting story that makes me want to read the source material.

Hammer Horror The Good:

Peter Cushing: While if I had to pick I’d pick Lee over Cushing, Peter Cushing is a good actor, and makes a good hero. His scenes are alive and interesting and while he does not seize the viewer as Lee can, he is an impressive actor himself and makes for a fine hero.

Christopher Lee: Is as always excellent. Whether it’s facial expressions while in full mummy wrap, walking around, or being a high priest he is intimidating and has excellent presence. Watching Karloff’s Mummy it’s a similar feel, and Lee was almost certainly drawing on Karloff’s for inspiration here.

The Action: Lee’s mummy makes a good menacing monster that threatens the protagonists in a very physical way. I liked it, and it came off well to me.

Universal (1932) The Bad:

The film is in black and white and unlike Dracula, Frankenstein, or the Vampyre does not put it to use; this is a minor thing but I was watching it with a small child and like me as a small child black and white is a deterrent. Still can’t hold it against a 1930s film, but I had come to expect use of shadow and the surreal quality of black and white in these old horror movies so I felt its absence.

The Action: There isn’t any and that might be part of why it bored my nephew.

The General Pacing: The film seems to drag despite only being around 75 minutes. I’d not have been bothered as much a week ago but I am getting burnt out. Still it feels slower than Frankenstein... though I like the story more.

The Heroes: While Boris Karloff is impressive, the rest of the cast much less so; pretty much any scene that lacks Karloff feels empty to some extent.

Hammer Horror The Bad:

The Story: It feels, to me, like it rests on a giant plot hole in that the villain could have killed them all earlier and prevented the desecration of the tomb. This bothers me, though not enough to make the movie unenjoyable (it’s less bothersome than in Ft13 part 2 and ultimately part of the ‘getting us there’ instead of ‘crux of it all’). Still it’s really is bothersome. At least, however, I can think of some reasons that can justify it. In addition it’s pretty basic monster stuff.

Overall:

In my honest opinion (and it’s just that an opinion) watching them back to back, sort of really tired of Hammer films... I enjoyed the Hammer film better. While the Universal studio one had the more interesting idea of a story, Hammer made better use of its story, and had the more charming cast (even though I think Karloff’s performance might have been better than Lee’s here but more on that later). Both had some major ‘wait I don’t... why?’ in them, and Hammer’s was more prominent to me, yet I still just think the Hammer film came together better and was more enjoyable.

Compared to Other Mummy Films:

I’ve only seen the 1999 Universal Studios one (and some of its sequels, plus some of the cartoon) which was not horror really and which... I think I enjoyed more than either, but I definitely wasn’t as burnt out then. I can’t really compare.

The Mummy: (Spoilers ahoy)

One can’t avoid talking about the eponymous mummy. Hammer’s reminds me of a golem story. The mummy is a puppet. Of course the Hammer film does this well, and uses it for fun with the (toned down) reincarnation plot. Universal’s is much more about the reincarnation plot; in fact Universal’s feels like something that would be a much better story to read than Hammer’s. We get a mummy who is a necromancer, he’s almost a lich on his own, this dark undead mage from 3700 years ago. A love story that stretches time, and... He cannot be beaten by physical means, but... is afraid to engage 2 old men in a fist fight. That bothered me. Burying him with the scroll bothers me. The mummy is a much more unique and interesting foe in the Universal film and allows Karloff to act and have presence that Lee in his bandages for most of the film cannot. Still the universe film in the end feels like it would make a better short story or novelization than a film, and just doesn’t hook me as entertainment. I watch the Hammer one and don’t feel ‘I should have read a short story about this’ I feel ‘This was fun’ and ‘If I hadn’t just watched an unholy amount of Hammer Films* I’d hunt down the sequel’ and that’s a decisive advantage. *More on this when I get to a Coven of Vampire movies, or ‘Oh god did I really watch 5 hammer vampire movies in a row I need a break’ also known as ‘Beware the vampires want to seduce your wife!’

#peanutdracolich watches horror #The Mummy #Hammer Horror #Universal Studios #The Mummy (1932)#Christopher Lee #Peter Cushing #Boris Karloff

0 notes

comiconverse · 7 years

Text

Film Review: The Mummy (2017)

Shared universes are all the rage in Hollywood today, as both Warner Bros. Pictures and Disney headline the idea with big projects of their own. Universal wants to join in all the fun with their monsters universe (Dark Universe), beginning with a reboot of The Mummy (2017). Film critic Jordan Samuel brings us the official ComiConverse review.

Film Review: The Mummy

Though safely entombed in a crypt deep beneath the unforgiving desert, an ancient princess, whose destiny was unjustly taken from her, is awakened in our current day bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia, and terrors that defy human comprehension.

Credit: Universal Studios

A shared universe can be a daunting task in the current age of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, adding new stories in a movie series can also make it seem more alive. Universal are known to have attempted pushing famous dark monsters into box-office gold, with various bombs ruining any chances for efforts like Van Helsing, The Wolfman remake, and Dracula Untold.

Earlier this year the studio announced their “Dark Universe”, which brings monster icons like Frankenstein and Dracula into a shared world, concentrating on the strange rudiments of such characters. Universal’s Mummy franchise started with the 1932 Boris Karloff (The Mummy) classic, and has become iconic in modern culture spawning various iterations. Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy (1999) made the series popular again in the early 2000s, shifting tone from grounded horror into one grand adventure; making it’s a family friendly affair.

I grew up with those movies, as their wide accessibility brought the family together for a few hours. They also gets replayed countless times on television, due to the balanced tone. But after the lackluster sequel The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), all that positivity was thrown out the window.

2017 brings us a Mummy reboot focused on the horror roots of the franchise, but retaining the adventure themes found in the more recent films. As the hype surrounding it has been silent, I’ve always been optimistic. But does it wrap around modern cinema tightly? Find out as our film critic Jordan Samuel gives us his thoughts on the picture.

Credit: Universal Studios

The Mummy is a bad start to the Dark Universe, being an incomplete meshing of iterations without the charm and imaginative direction seen in the last couple films to bare this title. Unoriginality blares out from the film’s Marvel Studios-style introduction, which from the get-go feels like a rushed goal. Alex Kurtzman takes on the classic tale, and forgets to make the audience feel engaged with the story. Instead, drops us into the battleground head on.

Introducing bland characters, and assuming that we would already be accustomed to their personalities, the connected storytelling bogs the film down in universe set-up; reminding me of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).

Alex Kurtzman tries his best in elevating beyond those constraints, but the terrible script limits his vision, building walls which block any sense of style and tone. The film ends up seeming like an unnecessary journey towards a larger film franchise.

The Mummy (2017) focuses on an ancient princess, Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who is awakened from a crypt in the dessert by Nick Morton (Tom Cruise); an explorer overly taken with his discovery; but that all changes when he is cursed by a great power.

The story is basic and doesn’t expand upon the previous incarnations, as Alex Kurtzman plays everything extremely safe.

Lacking much needed scary moments, The Mummy (2017) comes across like a generic superhero origin movie, with some painful universe set-up thrown in. Instead of being the franchise refresh imagined in the trailers, The Mummy (2017) relies heavily on clichés that feel alien in the current generation of Hollywood.

Credit: Universal Studios

Tom Cruise (Mission Impossible) is Nick Morton a soldier of fortune, specializing in treasure-hunting and tomb-raiding. He is hired alongside an American military unit in Iraq to retrieve an ancient sarcophagus from Egypt and bring it back to London. Cruise provides one decent performance, bringing his beloved physicality into the role, but ends up being wasted due to some bad screenwriting

Cruise is always great in his movies, he just painfully doesn’t get to do much in this pointless 2-hour reboot. He acts circles around the co-stars, which didn’t shock me, but the audience is not given the chance to care about Nick Morton.

Annebelle Wallis plays the archaeologist Jenny Hasley, The Mummy’s female lead, who is also searching for the lost tomb. Her performance is sadly thrown out in the cause of a blindly dumb female protagonist.

I’m quite disappointed that Alex Kurtzman (Transformers) didn’t provide a nice sidekick for the main character, just leaving us with one giant sour taste of old-school Hollywood horror clichés.

Now on to the focus, Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service) as The Mummy. This actress is beautiful in the classic role looking both fierce and intense.

Sofia just lacks any connection with the audience, due to her laughably bad motivations for taking over the world. Alex Kurtzman directs her towards some terrifying moments, but these are disconnected from the big-budget action.

Credit: Universal Studios

The screenwriters make her life before the while undead thing, a story of pure evil, limiting any sadness felt but her terrible plans. I feel bad for Sofia Boutella, as the actresses deserves better than this frankly boring villain. The action is uninspired and isn’t enough to keep you distracted from the terrible storyline. The editing is also very average.

The Mummy (2017) is one silly attempt at an unnecessary larger universe, which fails in giving us a good movie; which is surely how every successful shared universe must start. This movie forgets what made those earlier films so precious and beloved for all time. Universal could have done so much better, I would have preferred a lower-budget horror movie focused on the franchise’s roots.

The post Film Review: The Mummy (2017) appeared first on ComiConverse.

0 notes