Lee Cronin’s The Mummy
Somebody called Lee Cronin adds a very unpleasant chapter to the old chestnut of the walkin’, talkin’ dead.
Mummy mia: Natalie Grace and Laia Costa
Image courtesy of Warner Bros.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
The 1999 version of The Mummy, the box-office smash with Brendan Fraser, had a 12A certificate in the UK. But then it was directed by Stephen Sommers, not Lee Cronin. Perhaps Mr Cronin, who previously directed the supernatural horror films The Hole in the Ground (2019) and Evil Dead Rise (2023), was trying to distance himself from that particular hokum, in order to deliver something much darker and entirely more repellent. Indeed, here he would seem to be channelling The Exorcist more than the Egyptian romps of yore, along with all that demonic possession, levitating children and projectile vomiting. A lot of projectile vomiting. The 18 certificate is deserved, then.
Following the obligatory prologue, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy cuts to Cairo where the TV reporter Charlie Cannon (Jack Reynor) is covering the local environmental news. While he’s working at home, his nine-year-old daughter Katie is in the garden playing with her secret ‘friend’ when she disappears. Although Charlie catches sight of Katie’s abductor, he loses them both in the back streets of the city before the onslaught of a sandstorm. A police investigation follows, in which Charlie himself and his pregnant wife Larissa (Laia Costa) come under suspicion for their own child’s kidnapping. Eventually, with the offer of a promotion in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Charlie is forced to leave Egypt behind and to start a fresh life with their new baby, a second girl…
Sometimes, when a comedian exhibits a degree of desperation in attempting to make you laugh, the outcome is anything but funny. Likewise, Lee Cronin is just trying too hard to scare the heebie-jeebies out of us, so that everything comes with its own jarring sound effect, be it a step on the stairs or just the detonation of a pencil on paper. For gore mongers, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy no doubt delivers on the emetic front, although its three major set pieces are so over-the-top that one wonders if Mr Cronin was aiming for comic effect, albeit of the queasy variety. Where maybe the film pushes its luck is in the torment of children, treading a thin line between the vicarious thrill and a feeling of profound discomfort.
The consummate actors Jack Reynor (Midsommar) and Laia Costa (Only You) do their best to introduce a note of credibility, but are undermined at every turn. It doesn’t help that in Albuquerque they inhabit a dwelling which feels more like a house of horrors than a family residence, complete with spacious passageways hidden between the walls. It never feels like a real home, any more than anybody feels like a real person. Overwrought is just one adjective that springs to mind when describing this tosh. The prosthetics department gets a gold star, though.
Cast: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Shylo Molina, Billie Roy, Emily Mitchell, Hayat Kamille, May Elghety, Husam Chadat, Verónica Falcón, Natalie Grace, Mark Mitchinson.
Dir Lee Cronin, Pro James Wan, Jason Blum and John Keville, Ex Pro Lee Cronin, Screenplay Lee Cronin, Ph Dave Garbett, Pro Des Nick Bassett, Ed Bryan Shaw, Music Stephen McKeon, Costumes Joanna Eatwell, Sound Peter Albrechtsen, Dialect coaches Poll Moussoulides and Nadia Gattan.
New Line Cinema/Atomic Monster/Blumhouse Productions/Wicked/Good-Warner Bros.
132 mins. USA/Ireland/Spain. 2026. UK and US Rel: 17 April 2026. Cert. 18.
