Half in the Bag Episode 128: The Mummy

half in the bag well I heard you went on a date with mr. blinken I did yeah our first date it went really well we went to the movies we saw the mommy starring Tom Cruise the only weird thing was there was a guy in the bathroom wearing a ski mask that was handing out free samples of cake well I mean I took him of course because it's free cake it was [ __ ] delicious yeah I mean if there's a weirdo on a bathroom wearing a ski mask handing you something to eat always just try it you know you've told me that advice before and that's why I took it it's good advice always eat the cake when it's handed to you you know it's funny I also saw the mummy too oh do you want to talk about the mummy starring Tom Cruise about halfway through the film and I started to get a little itchy because I forgot I was wearing the ski mask I always eat the cake when it's handed to you welcome to a new world of guns and monsters the mummy is the first and last entry in universals dark universe cinematic universe or the UD u Cu for short it stars Tom Cruise as a confused elderly man who seems unaware what movies and who uncovers an ancient tomb that unleashes sofia boutella as a soul-sucking mummy at lasts cinema now has that sexy mummy that we've all been clamoring for the movie co-stars Russell Crowe Jake Johnson is Griffin Dunne and a blonde woman who will work for scale Mike what did you think of the mommy well Jay I know this film has been getting bad reviews but I have to say I loved it [Music] no I'm just [ __ ] with you it's sucked it might have been the worst film I have ever seen that's not true I would you know what I would describe this movie is watchable the third act gets really tedious but I think it was watchable but I still hated it I hated it for everything that it represents which I guess we'll get into because it's way more interesting than the movie itself before seeing the movie I put a question out on Twitter or is like if this movie flops is that the end of this dark universe before it even gets going and people were responding multiple people were saying it doesn't matter if it flops here's like foreign market foreign market foreign release and so that idea of like doing well overseas was in my brain while watching it and it became more and more prevalence when the dialects position was so on the nose and explaining exactly what was happening and there's multiple flashbacks to a prologue just to keep reminding you exactly what's happening and normally we say like oh the movies made for dummies but I think this movie's not made for dummies this movie is made for people that don't speak English and the foreign market is more important than making a decent movie and so that was my biggest takeaway from this movie and it just felt so pathetic yeah the long stretches of flashbacks that have voice over explaining there's a big one with rust crow yeah and then there's several other ones where you're saying that they could just swap out the dialogue and they don't have to do like voiceover they could just change it out to whatever they want yeah and for the Chinese market they could change it out to the mystical Chinese god of so-and-so Biggs bestowed The Mummy with magical power changed the story - yeah why not why not why not who needs integrity or a decent film yeah it's it's I think the best word to describe this film is is pathetic because it even has that at the end it has that Marvel like music that's that [ __ ] do you like where it's like ramping up to the end to get you excited for the next film it's like it's like copied directly from that oh yeah and so you know it's like Universal Studios is just like going what do we got that that's what that's all I was thinking about was like yeah there's the classic Universal monster movies from the 30s and 40s and these these current executives they're just like Marvel's big what can we dig up we got these moldy old monster movies let's turn him into action films [Music] that that was the mostly like that made my skin crawl when I saw that it's a dark universe trailer which is essentially a trailer for the logo right and it's it's footage from all adult classic Universal monster movies edited with like modern action music and it's so so lame yeah well it's it serves two purposes one to get people aware of this dark universe concept which I had no idea I have not heard of it it's it came out like they started advertising it just like a week or two before this movie came out they published a photo of like the cast's so it's got like Russell Crowe and Tom Cruise and then like Johnny Depp who's gonna be playing the Invisible Man and they're like look we're here where the dark universe we're just like marbled I know we tried this already with Dracula untold but that was a flop so that doesn't count this is a do-over now we got Tom Cruise it's a surefire hit everything about it feels so desperate yeah desperate and pathetic the next film they're doing is Bride of Frankenstein before Frankenstein okay just to yeah that's what makes sense how does it make sense because they just did a Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein what the I Frankenstein movie no Victor Frankenstein [ __ ] don't you remember that it happened like a year ago they just did that I mean that that movie was better than than this and that movie would fit better in this universe I don't know if it's part of it or who know that has nothing to do with it I didn't really I didn't particularly like Victor Frankenstein but at least felt like it had some personality and that's this movie it's like like eating of like a rice cake like there's nothing to this yeah but I can see them wanting to do Bride of Frankenstein because that that hair is so iconic and yeah it's it's things we know again but this one this movie was a disaster there there was a thing that I noticed like because this movie is directed by a prestigious filmmaker by the name of Alex Kurtzman part of the Kurtzman and Orci or C writing duo that wrote the first two Star Trek films I'm gonna get in this new franchise [ __ ] Star Trek I'm gonna have my own cinematic universe here's the mummy but yeah aside from the the the lengthy scenes of exposition dialogue that were just embarrassing like oh god when when the the the scale blonde woman like what she's like you know you're you're just a sly adventurer who spends all of his time searching for antiquities to sell them on the black market is an actual dialogue yeah and it was like it was like straight out of like a b-movie that we'd watch on best of the word just awful but then I'm watching it and then the Russell Crowe character appears and I noticed a trope or at least I'm going to create it as a trope and we're going to recreate it for you here okay I'm gonna call it the no look look and it means that this guy is all business this sounds really stupid it sounds really minut but it's so corny looking on screen is a visual the the the construction guy runs up to them to go says what are you doing leavings and hands them like a letter like oh and keeps looking around as and I'm too important to even give you the time I'm focused on this [ __ ] sure and it's like it's like film school level director you know this area's off-limits talk to the judge this is my crimes Tom Cruise's character is a thief and multiple times throughout the movie someone says Tom Cruise you're a thief he was kind of like a throwback to like the 80s action star like the machismo man who's wrong with women and yeah it was distracting because I think Tom Cruise is completely wrong for that part [Music] I thought Tom Cruise was flat-out bad in this movie and I don't hate Tom Cruise but if this is the first movie you'd ever seen with Tom Cruise he'd be like wow that guy's a movie star like he is bad in this he's so miscast yeah Tommy they got like a Chris Pratt yeah we can make a whole episode on why Tom Cruise is miscast in this movie yeah because it's weird it was straight out weird I think everyone goes Tom Cruise because he he has a pretty good track record of picking decent scripts and vehicles for himself over the past like 15 years yeah a couple of exceptions but do you have all the the Mission Impossible movies which the last three of them have been fun smartly written good action-adventure films the couple of sci-fi ones he did Julie tomorrow a trip tomorrow also known as live die repeat right rats of that one and there was the other one that was soso but it wasn't terrible looking oblivion and a couple other movies and then and then he's like this yeah this is like not his caliber he's like a list this is like they cast him bring bread of razorback what he'll work for scale now he'll work for scale because he breaks them a lot I know I shouldn't be talking but that was a damn fine that was a quality joke so much that it threw off my sense of balance this is bigger than anything I've ever done before well Jay let me just wrap up what I was saying about Tom Cruise in the mummy and so you're like Tom Cruise in this film and then he's he seems like a guy he should be playing like like a Chris Pratt kind of aged character like 33 Tom Cruise someone that's the same age as his love interests yes is now a running thing with Tom Cruise movies well yeah we saw a trailer for some other film he's in and I'm like I'm like I said his wife or his daughter or his Grandda granddaughter and then and I looked it up and there's like a 25 year difference or something like that and they're like okay I mean this lady was like I think once you once you're just broke the 30-year old mark as a woman you can play Tom Cruise's love interest okay I'm into it for them to his credit he does not look like 58 so especially not with all the digital d aging that's the thing that Hollywood doesn't like to talk about but these aging movie stars it's in their contracts mhm they click a couple buttons on their computer in it like smoothes out crow's feet and wrinkles and Sally with magic Tom Cruise will be the same age forever now yeah you can just never go out in public mr. Cruise requires a 30-foot distance into heaven it'll be like old episodes of Star Trek whenever you see him where it cuts to like like dr. McCoy and it's like perfectly in focus and it cuts to a lady of a certain age and it's like blurry and usually Tom Cruise he's a we've discussed it many times before on this program he's a weirdo in real life he's strange but as an actor he usually transcends and does a really solid job he's a true true Hollywood actor movie star professional yeah well he's got limited range but like you mentioned he's very good at picking the right scripts for he knows what movies will utilize his limited range well and this is like he doesn't do like like smarmy cocky like that does not know they could say Chris Pratt that's the yeah modern-day actor and you would cast yellow like that he can deliver your lines for you convincingly and he could run around you know and you know he's got a bit of wit to him but yeah he doesn't he doesn't pause and do like the dramatic movie in between the blockbusters he's just like I'm just doing blockbusters from here on out I did my thing you did Magnolia he's good man yeah yeah Magnolia again you know Jerry Maguire that reminds me I can't possibly be the first person to make this joke but it's very disappointed that in this movie at no point that Tom Cruise say show me the mummy that's my only joke for this episode I I think you need to digitally da George Oh [Laughter] 1996 called it that's it's joke back yeah so like I said the film starts with Nick Miller and Tom Cruise riding around in the desert looking for stuff and they cut to old Mesopotamian statues being shot up and and you know and Isis does that they blow up old things yeah Buddhist statues old old antiquities from the ancient world they blow them up and to shoot them up and then so they go down in this little village and they're and Iraq somewhere and then it's like let's go down to the village Tom Cruise acts like a child by cutting Nick Miller's a water bag yeah let's go down to the village and they go down there and it's like and cut dude whoa we're in trouble so calculated and it was like feels like a movie made in a lab well yeah that the the structure and the cuts and stuff but it was also like it had that kind of like let's try and be a wacky fun Marvel movie or an Indiana Jones type film and the modern-day setting of Iraq with like Isis and terrorism and stuff just felt like a really big flash like I was like oh this isn't fun this is awful little city being bombed now yeah and then like how they bring on the air strikes and but the premise was was that lady mummy who was gonna be mummy mummy King gonna be like Cleopatra but her father gave birth to a son who would then become the heir so she's like I'm just gonna I want to be the king or queen imma kill everyone she had to do some kind of ritualistic sacrifice to bring the God of evil dearth so that she could rule mankind blah blah blah bad basic bad guy plot thank god we see this flashback six times throughout they tell us some detail what happened and then they carry her a thousand miles away and bury her it's very very I guess they took the time to carve all those statues too sure they had another but time back then and since Tom Cruise is a brazen swashbuckling dude he just says [ __ ] it cut cut it open for some reason they rigged it to where if you cut a rope that probably would have rotted over five thousand years it brings the sarcophagus out of the the the mercury it's in a pool of mercury a.m. why would they have a system rigged up to raise it out of the pool of mercury if they wanted to keep it submerged and that was another moment where I was like Tom Cruise is just terrible in this when he makes the decision to just shoot the rope or shoot the chain and this is showing him and he's looking around and he's kind of goes and it was so bad you know what it's and and his casting is very calculated - oh yeah no that's that's I think why they kind of decided to make this the official kickoff of the dark universe because it's like look we got Tom Cruise he's a movie star these are real movies yes yes because people in all sorts of foreign countries all over the world probably know who Tom Cruise is more than a Chris Pratt yeah look so that's more appropriate for the party oh sure so yeah very calculated he doesn't fit but he does in the long run because of box office returns Sophia - teller brings a true humanity to the mummy well Jake Johnson dies in this movie and then he comes back as like a spirit like a zombie spirit to guides Tom Cruise along and it's exactly the same [ __ ] thing as American Werewolf in London exactly I was murdered an unnatural death and now I walked the earth in limbo until the werewolf curse is lifted shut up right down to that exam beef character kind of being like comic relief I don't be a putz David so they yeah flat-out ripped off American Werewolf in London and even more shocking and this is a sentence I never thought I would say about any movie ever this movie The Mummy rips off life force the tobe Hooper directed cannon films slock classic The Mummy comes back and it's sucking the life force out of people and the people it sucks the life force out of become like like zombified minions and then there's chaos in London at the end that's the exact same thing that's happening at life force it was amazing to see a big-budget movie ripoff life force the movie about space vampires producers of life force if you're still alive this matter with your crack legal team get on at tobe Hooper wake up put put down put down the joint and go after the producers of The Mummy they're gonna have negative money for you to sue them for actually the budget of this film was only a hundred and twenty five million dollars okay which again falls in with its calculated risk yeah was that it was not a bloated Ghostbusters disaster that's tearing where they just said yeah okay 125 million plus marketing costs of course even then that's the double that it's it's still the budget of a regular big-budget movie yeah so they were smart in I betcha Tom Cruise has a little contract where he worked for less on this in order to have again a piece of the whole franchise as a whole oh yeah they they sent this movie up in a way where they can drag him back out for any of these movies yeah yeah I mean they want him to be there Robert Downey jr. yes yes I have a although his salary probably won't explode out of control but and he's not as appealing as Robert Downey jr. yeah or as good yeah or as funny yeah not as talented yeah doors big of a draw yeah on the box I was right but I have a feeling Tom Cruise said yeah yeah I'll be in your movie but I want a piece of the big pie including all the follow-ups and spin-offs and yeah it's a Creature from the Black Lagoon all the nonsense they're gonna make in this or maybe won't I may be long but yeah so you you you have a relatively small budget which is why it felt kind of like a cheap movie be than then they could worldwide they can make their money back well that's speaking of budget that's the weirdest thing to me is that they decided to make I mean I guess it makes sense if you're looking at it like worldwide box office in foreign countries you want to make something that has that sort of fun Avengers type tone but you look at like the original universal monster movies their horror movies do something like like follow the Blum House model and make these very very modestly budget budgeted actual horror movies because horror movies especially right now are consistently doing well they consistently make money people like horror films but by making a movie like this you've alienated those people because they're like [ __ ] I don't want to see action mummy movie yeah that's a good point somebody said the Chinese don't like American horror films and that's the fame is that they want to follow that Marvel formula even if it's a bigger risk but you're right if Universal scaled it back and and did smaller kind of really creepy get-get Oz Perkins to directory I go the director of a fine film called the Black Codes daughter the Black Codes daughter wonderful horror film check out the black coats daughter it's a slow burn folks but it's it's good there were many different ways to go and I think they went for the biggest like biggest was a safe bet but well I think I mean I starting with the mummy was probably the best option if you're going this route because people think of the the Brendan Fraser movies and those are kind of fond adventure movies like it's it's weird because the MoMA is like the worst monster [ __ ] mummies is what I always say hashtag [ __ ] mummies well Dracula and Frankenstein are a little burnt out at this point because they just did Victor Frankenstein and then Dracula Dracula untold Dracula untold I was gonna say Dracula 3000 [Laughter] for brains mommy haven't done mommy in a while creature from black goon to goofy the Invisible Man - yeah and then so it's like yeah that's a safer bet it's it's it's all very committee committee think yeah and all these and then they introduced Russell Crowe as dr. Jekyll yes he's okay as dr. Jekyll at a certain point the movie transforms into mr. Hyde and it's laughable he's like channeling Freddy Krueger and not even good Freddy Krueger like Freddy's dead Freddy Krueger it's weird and dr. Jekyll is the guy in charge of he's the Sam Jackson yeah he's eerie right for the monster Cinematic Universe everything we're saying sounds like the lamest [ __ ] and it's all real they're doing their best doing their best to to capitalize on very very old properties it's a hell of a lot of fun I think I think too another thing that like was a not annoying to me but confusing was all the the globe-trotting and I think it was because you think of like the mummy the original concept of a spooky mummy I think like late 18-hundreds ish is when like like old British guys would go over to Egypt and we're taking over and we're just gonna dig around where we please [ __ ] your culture yeah and look at all these weird mummies and then Aaron's like oh that's spooky they wrapped up their dead bodies and preserve them that's that's creepy so the idea that that a mummy is a monster is is a is a little dated and almost racist you can't make a movie where a civilization burial ritual which is their part of their culture is a scary monster because then you have people with the signs outside the theater yeah you'd have a bunch of white college students that's about just how racist mummies are yeah so lady mummy is not really mommy she's just a bad guy who they mummified right then they moved her over to Iraq so they find her in Iraq and then part of her magical dagger is in the burial chamber of Christian Crusaders who also become evil mummies so they intentionally removed as possible as we can they intentionally took the subject matter and smeared it out different cultures and religions so that you don't appeals to everybody yes yes the Christian Crusaders those nights were we're also evil mummies we're in Iraq now and also a little bit of Egypt yeah it's like they're they're um they're putting a blindfold over your eye on spinning you around and then you have to figure out which way is the protest that you want to go to so you don't really know yeah because really if it was just if this was like a Wonder Woman ask movie where it took place in early 1900 slash late 1800s and Tom Cruise was like I'm Safari man from England and I'm just gonna start digging in Egypt I I just I mess around for glory I'm out to find treasures I'm out to loot all these tombs because I'm a British man and if they did that and he found a mummy and the mummy one then I'd be like this is the most racist thing it's like when people look back at how the culture the Indian culture was portrayed in oh well of doom okay even though it was a modern-day farcical in a way it was kind of like making fun of the old serials oh yeah there's a layer yes with not satire but a self-awareness yes where it's sort of like that's how that kind of mystical stuff was portrayed in in old timey movies yes we didn't understand a lot of their culture so we thought they ate snakes and did weird [ __ ] right we kind of made fun of that in our in our safari adventure films right and so if they did something like that that would have been a disaster so I think this doesn't feel like a mummy movie because it's all over the map literally well I guess we didn't worry about spoilers but who cares let's skip to the end this is the ultimate who cares movie yes Tom Cruise's character arc is that he this is like a Saturday morning cartoons simplistic he's a guy who only cares about himself but decides to save a lady he that when the planes going down during the famous plane scene which which was laughed at by on the internet because they released a version that only contained temporary sound effects well it only had some of the layers it didn't have all the tracks yeah and somehow somebody missed it and they uploaded it to the Internet and Ju you were able to download this before it was removed yes so we're gonna take a look at that here and then Universal will come after us immediately here it is and that's all we could show you so the plane is crashing that there on Tom Cruise gives blond lady a parachute and he's like here's a parachute and then she's like you you were selfless you gave me the only parachute he's like he's like I thought there was two yeah and then I saw he's like I really didn't save you I still am kind of an [ __ ] but then at the end of the film Tom Cruise heroically saved her by stabbing himself with ceremonial dagger to to become an evil person right so he scared her back to life III think that if you can assume that that an evil creature can suck the life out of somebody that you can give it back because okay it does revive Jake Johnson oh that's so he could be back for his wacky antics in future films but he's like thanks for thanks for bringing me back to life Tom Cruise now we can go on more adventures that was literally he even says Tom Cruise I just left him I thought I was off they don't have another tape to use yeah so he becomes an evil monster and so that that was his character arc he likes stealing things and and going on adventures and being being a man who likes to go on adventures and steal things but now here now he's an undead mummy man yes yes we see that the result of him saving the bond lady's life turns him into a cursed character and now he's the mummy and there's a shot where they shows hands and he has mummy bandy mummy a feed on his hands for no reason other than oh he's a mummy now I get that it was amazing it was I could not believe it it was pure slog there's absolutely no reason for him to have that on his hands mother in the desert the film opens the way it ended with with him he's got like you know he's protected by the the sand and he's only see his eyes that kind of ends that way well then we get the the voiceover from dr. Jekyll he's saying like we may have to call on him for future adventures because a monster needs to fight another monster come back for the next film y'all and then it irises out to the Looney Tunes music [Music] yeah so that's the mummy it's it's it's downright embarrassing it's it's yeah as we've said pathetic and embarrassing that I get embarrassing those are the two words I think that that accurately describe this movie if your grandfather stumbles across it on TNT and like two o'clock in the afternoon on a Sunday he'll probably say that was an okay movie yeah but that's that's it yeah that's it so I'm gonna start with my recommendation stay far away from the money I I thought it was laughably bad at points but not a lot it's more you have to look at like the thought process behind the movie like I said the movie itself is watchable but it's more like I just spent the whole time thinking about like all the creative decisions though to making it the way it is but knowing how these movies are made and how like like on the nose some of the dialogue was made me laugh out loud you know just an average viewer probably wouldn't but like when the lady starts doing the exposition and it's just it's very badly written yeah I laughed at that or some of the the way that things were revealed I think I even said oh you're gonna say in the dialogue yeah for a second this isn't a tomb and I'm like it's a present it's a present it wasn't designed to keep people out it was designed to keep designed to keep her Amy got it yes yes oh my god and she just starts immediately talking internal like bluetooth like I'm I'm professor so-and-so and I'm here to log what I find here translation tell the audience what's going on like oh my god so I left it stuff like that but I wanted it to be over and I was miserable and I fell asleep too loud [Laughter] I'm sorry Universal Studios monster movies tour expanded universes suck you have these great properties is these classic characters and that's the the worst part of all is yeah you're not doing anything clever with them yeah it's so it's so exhausting it's so exhausting if you haven't seen Bride of Frankenstein watch Bride of Frankenstein it's a legitimately great movie and it's really [ __ ] weird so I would not recommend this movie because I don't want to encourage this we're talking to you Chinese maybe it won't play in China because of the ghosts so they should yeah yeah wouldn't that be great there's definitely a huge misstep right out of the gate though this is the putting the cart before the horse big time Big Time just like the ghost core yes yes exactly like that so so stay far far away from any theaters playing The Mummy don't even watch other the other movies and the theater and the same theatre you just might be exposed to it somehow it's like a deadly pathogen wait till everything's gone from that theater and it's been cleaned then go back to watching movies again okay it's my catch like a see like a ticket stub on the floor an old poster it'll be like alien covenant the stokke kind of flies you up and gets into your brain yes it flies into your ear and then all you hear is stop it movies stop it ruining my life you

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 2,676,382

Rating: 4.9120002 out of 5

Keywords: redlettermedia, red letter media, red, letter, media, plinkett, half in the bag, best of the worst, mike stoklasa, jay bauman, rich evans, the mummy, tom cruise, dark universe, alex kurtzman

Id: rgRaI8UPovU

Length: 34min 2sec (2042 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Scandral]

2 minutes in and it looks like the HitB is one of those old HitB's where they segmented it and really get into how bad and cynical a movie is

[u/Mazzocchi]

11:52; MIKE'S STAR TREK REFERENCE!

[u/TomServoMST3K]

The weird thing about these universe's is how they don't copy Marvel.

I remember seeing Iron Man without any knowledge of who the Avengers were or any of that shit, and loving that movie.

Now it's like a big deal, and the expanded stuff is advertised before the first movie is even out.

Just make a good mummy movie.

[u/ThePondererTK]

ALWAYS EAT THE CAKE WHEN IT IS HANDED TO YOU

[u/manwhowouldbeking]

Mike keeps referring to Jake Johnson as nick miller, Mikes love of new girl has finally emerged.

[u/Gambit08]

I haven't been this excited for a Half in the Bag review since suicide squad

[u/RadiantViper]

This might be one of the best HITB's ever. They seemed to be having a blast criticizing every aspect of the movie and the editing was on point, I love the cutaway for the "no look" trope.

This movie sounds like a parody of hack Hollywood producers and idea men and I almost want to see it to witness the dialogue myself ... but I'll wait for Netflix.

[u/TheBlueBlaze]

Their opinions on the movie aside, I like the new "structure" to the reviews, where they have those title cards to cut the review into parts.

[u/lftovrporkshoulder]

Jay bringing the joke(s).

SHOW ME THE MUMMY!