This is not a tomb. It's a prison.

We catch up. We laugh. We bullshit about whatever.

We go out to eat (usually Mexican). We go to a baseball game. We bullshit some more.

We talk about our wives. We play some videogames. We talk about our wives some more..

And then, as is also part of the annual tradition of when my older brother comes to visit me, we go to a terrible f--king movie.

In 3D.

Last year, it was the dreadful-ass sequel no one asked for, the steaming bucket of dicks that was Independence Day: Resurgence. This year, it was a dreadful-ass reboot no one asked for, the sack full of assholes known as The Mummy. 

It's not that we hate ourselves, or our money, that continually leads us down this awful road of dick-punch cinema. But it's instead something that we both love (and always have): the promise of a big screen spectacle. We're men of simple tastes, and getting together always reminds us of our shared childhood thirty-plus years ago. A big-budget nod to the past should have been the stuff of dreams, right? Well...maybe if either of us could have stayed awake.

I don't think I could pass a test on the finer points of what exactly happened in the Tom Cruise-led re-imagining of The Mummy, but I'm not sure anyone involved in its production could either. 

Consider that everything you're about to read is based on the opinion of a man who saw the second half of this film through the lens of a single alternating eye. And when you're that tired, or that bored, or whatever the case may have been, you start to really get angry at the film that's keeping you awake. I just wanted to rest in peace, you know? And then this handsome, ageless prick wakes me up, and I'm thinking: I'd like to level whatever city that f--ker's in, mainly by way of a giant sand cloud, shaped like my screaming face. 

Uh, or something like that.

This lengths cinemas go to keep people off their phones is impressive.

Tom Cruise plays Nathan Drake Nick Morton, a moderately slimy soldier, who inadvertently/ridiculously unearths an ancient Egyptian tomb...in modern day Iraq. Some moderately hot-chick named Jenny shows up, and demands this warzone be roped off so she can study the creepy sarcophagus. Makes sense, right? Right. And Jenny, who despite having no bone in her body suggesting she's anything short of a classy lady, has actually had Nick's bone in her body a few days prior. Apparently a shared interest in antiquities never came up when they were doing it like they do on the The Discovery Channel. Anyway, the unlikely pair quickly become caretakers of this ancient corpse, and hop aboard a big ass plane in order to investigate it further. The films best scene, heavily featured in the trailer, ensues.

Turns out, there's a pissed off former heir-to-the-throne inside the mysterious coffin, and she's all up in Nick, too. Literally. See, Nick starts having visions of he and the potentially sexy Ahmanet making time in the desert. Apparently, she needs his sculpted body to come back to life, where her plan is to...uh, I'm not really sure. I bet it's evil though. And involves sandstorms and giant bugs shooting out of her ass and mouth.

Nick isn't super stoked about being cursed, not to mention this undead broad skulking about London, trying to suck him off in the least pleasurable way. Luckily, when shit's getting real heavy, he runs into Maximus Russell Crowe, who playing Dr. Jekyll, informs Nick that a super secret agency is tracking monsters all over the world, and will step in and ice this bitch. Well, they would, if Dr. Jekyll could chill the f--k out and not turn into Mr. Hyde and immediately try to kill Nick.

Wow. That's a big ass hole.

Uh, lots of other shit happens, but I honestly didn't give a f--k about any of it. CG corpses skulk about, Nick's best/dead (imaginary?) friend shows up for some laughs, and maybe the worst romance in any movie ever plods along with the grace of a fat guy jumping rope on a hot day. Lots of ideas are thrown around, but each deftly avoids logic and interest along the way. I genuinely like Tom Cruise...I do...

...but I hated The Mummy. Maybe being totally coherent would have changed my wind, or maybe it would have made me even more upset. But I will never ever know for sure, as there's not a chance in an Egyptian Hell that I ever watch this movie again. At best, I'll watch the kickass Brendan Fraser one from 1999, while listening to the Top Gun soundtrack, but even that feels like a big ask at this point.

Also pushing their luck, are the Yays and Boos. If you think my thoughts are muddy and worthless, you should check out my notes. 

Crowe might just be the best part of this movie.

Yaaaaaaay!

• Perhaps surprisingly, I liked Ahmanet's backstory. Her ascension to the throne aside (no male heir for two decades? Uh, no. Pharoahs f--ked like it was their job, typically), I dug her whole revenge plot...twisted as it was.
• Those ancient spider/bug-things were the right kind of terrible. Poor Vail takes one to the neck!
• I already mentioned it, but for my money, the plane crash scene was nothing short of f--king brilliant. Some dude's I did a podcast with said it went on too long. Some dudes, apparently, wouldn't know a good time if it tumbled around in zero-grav with them for five minutes...and then hit them in the face.
• In order to reanimate, this undead chick basically kisses you like she's a band camp (meaning? it goes on too long and is heavy on the tongue).
• There are a couple of fight scenes that are pretty enjoyable, at least initially. And the van attack? Oh, I loved that shit.
• Especially when Nick falls out of it, and then somehow avoids being rolled over by the damn thing.
• And finally, even though 99% of this review suggests otherwise, I'm still kind of in for whatever becomes of this proposed Dark Universe from Universal. Sure, the first film sucked elaborately dehydrated testicles, but who isn't pumped for another Cinematic Universe? *crickets* F--k you, guys. Marvel and DC can't have all the fun (or if this was twenty years ago, View Askew).

Boooooooooooooo!

• Can you mummify someone that's alive? I feel like it might be hard for the bandages to set, you know? Not to mention they removed all the f--king organs.
• I've never really understood how airstrikes work, but uh, these two a-holes call one in and then run all over the damn place. How the f--k did they not get hit? 
• And speaking of this stupid f--king scene, the mid shoot-out bickering was just the worst. I like Jake Johnson, but I also wanted him to die. Hard.
• Jenny, our resident sarcophagus expert, is super lame. I'm sure Annabelle Wallis is a fine woman, and a fine actress. But this character? Anything but.
• So, let me get this straight, the army, battling insurgents in Iraq, gives a f--k about a mummy's tomb? Really? 
• Do they tow things with planes because it looks cool? Or because it doesn't make any sense?
• Nick's crew is one other guy. Vail. That's it. You'd think he'd notice him totally f--king dying in plain sight. You'd think.
• One time, I swear to you, a huge tree in my backyard housed every single crow on the planet simultaneously. Cool? Yes. Creepy? Also yes. But quiet? F--k no. Here, crows gather in huge groups and apparently just find themselves quietly pondering life as a crow.
• Ugh. Rats are the f--king worst. 
• That was quite a bit of vomit, no?
• Underwater zombies are actually kind of cool. But underwater chase scenes are definitely not.
• Oh, Dark Universe totally equals poor lighting.
• I'd rather not get into it, but again, the romance thing is so f--king unreasonable, it makes me want to punch Lloyd Dobler directly in the stomach and smash his boombox to pieces. Why Nick does what he does (and how he does it [he screams her back to life?]) was so forced, so impossibly unnatural, I think I literally threw my arms up in defeat. Or at least I dreamed I did, because at this point I was f-king delirious.
• And speaking of being out of one's mind, I don't want to fall in with those people that hate Tom Cruise...because he's Tom Cruise, but man this movie hurt my soul. My boy Jerry MaGuire is simply too old to be playing this part, too old to be That Guy. Shit. He's banging Wallis, who was in diapers when he was in Top Gun. Crowe is perfect as the wise old super-agent...and he's younger than Tom Cruise for f--k's sake. If this really becomes a shared universe, is TC going to be suplexing the Wolfman at age sixty? Who does he think he is, Harrison Ford?

My brother Bryan and I typically never agree on movies. Outside of Logan [review], I can't think of a single movie in the last ten years that we both liked. But when we staggered to the car last Saturday night, it seemed like we had reached some euphoric consensus for the first time ever. The Mummy? 

Total bullshit, we each said, as we quietly nodded in agreement. 

Yeah, I said, I liked the Brendan Fraser movies waaaaay better, right?

His response? 

Those? He looks over at me.

Oh, those f--king sucked.