Over the weekend, Universal released the trailer for The Mummy, which is the first installment in its Monster Cinematic Universe. Starring Tom Cruise as Nick Morton and Sofia Boutella as Princess Ahmanet aka The Mummy, with Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance, and Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll, the film will attempt to bring iconic movie monsters kicking and screaming into the 21st century. But do we really need this? The Mummy trailer suggests not.
Back when Universal first announced Boutella as the lead, I was excited. Here was a chance to invert the classic Egyptian curse trope and allow a female character to be both powerful and kind of gross. After all, from his first outing in 1932 the male Mummy has always straddled the line between “recognizably human” and “emaciated corpse.” Then came the trailer, featuring Boutella in strategic bandages (when her character gets to wear clothes at all). I shouldn’t have been surprised. This movie started production well before Hollywood realized women are pretty fed up with seeing themselves reduced to wank material, even when they’re allegedly the star.
In the video below, I go into detail about how The Mummy has a long way to go to convince me its worth the effort of putting on pants and going to my local cineplex next summer.
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