Lee Cronin’s The Mummy Review: An Evil Dead ripoff that lacks its own identity

PLOT: The young daughter of a journalist disappears into the desert without a trace. Eight years later, the broken family is shocked when she is returned to them, as what should be a joyful reunion turns into a living nightmare.

REVIEW: It feels a bit weird to have a new Mummy movie while a sequel for the Brendan Fraser series is in production, right? Part of me thinks that Blumhouse would have been better off just naming this something else. Maybe, Evil Dead: Egypt, since the film is so obsessed with trying to have the same aesthetic as that series that it loses any sort of originality that it could have had. And sure, this is technically based on a property that’s nearly 100 years old and already has many different interpretations. But that also means it has a lot of baggage.

I should get it out of the way that I wasn’t a fan of Evil Dead Rise. But, despite finding that mediocre, I went into Lee Cronin’s The Mummy with an open mind. I even tried to ignore the fact that this was produced by Blumhouse, who hasn’t delivered anything of the non-mediocre variety in quite a while. And it’s not all bad, as there are some good performances from Jack Reynor, May Calamawy, and Natalie Grace. Unfortunately, it just can’t settle on what it wants to be, and every time it’s on the right track, it makes a massive misstep.

The Mummy (because putting your name in front of it feels very pretentious for such a young career) follows a family after their daughter is abducted in Egypt, and she returns to them eight years later. There are two stories running parallel: the family and their possessed daughter, and the Egyptian detective trying to solve the mystery of what happened to her. I actually enjoyed the moments in Egypt and when the lore is introduced. That all felt very apropos, and I liked what they were setting up with an ancient evil. It’s just too bad they felt they needed to go all Evil Dead with the family stuff.

It really doesn’t help that the mummy constantly acts like a Deadite, going full crude humor and strange twitching. There were times when I was half-expecting Ash Williams to show up with his chainsaw to start laying down the business. The power levels of the mummy are very inconsistent and seem to just flow with what the narrative needs at any moment. It’s never properly defined. The violence is nothing extraordinary and doesn’t take advantage of its setups. Everything happens so quickly, and it would have really benefited from more practical effects. There’s a scorpion gag that is cool in concept but looks really cheap in execution.

There’s been a lot of discussion around the film’s runtime, which clocks in at 2 hours and 13 minutes. There are times when you can certainly feel it, but it’s not nearly as egregious as I was expecting. There’s definitely some stuff that could be cut, and scenes could have been tightened up, but it’s never boring, which is impressive. Though it definitely should have ended a couple of minutes earlier, as it’s practically slapping the audience over the head with the point.

The star of the show is the cinematography, as DP David Garbett gives us some beautiful shots. I loved how the film dealt with darkness, especially in the house, which has an almost haunted house feel to it. I just wish the editing wasn’t so rapid and we got some time to appreciate the beauty. Also, I’m not sure there’s anyone in the world who loves a split diopter shot more than Lee Cronin. I stopped counting somewhere around the dozen mark, and it got to be incredibly distracting. There’s a reason that it’s something that’s usually used sparingly in other films.

Despite enjoying the cinematography and some of the performances, The Mummy just feels too familiar. If it had just gone a more straightforward route rather than trying to make everything Evil Dead-lite, then it could have given something to sink my teeth into. Instead, it can never quite find its footing and feels very “style over substance.” From the generic family to the bad CGI in the third act, this feels too Blumhouse for my liking. By the end, I was quite annoyed, and that carried over to this review.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is playing in theaters on April 17th, 2026.