'Lee Cronin's The Mummy': Disturbing family horror takes a while to wrap

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MANILA, Philippines — Adding director Lee Cronin's name to the title is Warner Bros.' way of pointing out this "The Mummy" is different from any version we've seen before, and yet it still comes off as something familiar.

"Lee Cronin's The Mummy" starts with an American family living in Cairo where the daughter is kidnapped and efforts to find her go dry.

Eight years later the same girl is miraculously found barely alive inside a dark sarcophagus, the sole intact remains of a horrific sarcophagus.

The Cannon family take her home to adjust to a life of normalcy, but strange things happen ahead of a dark force waiting to be unwrapped and unleashed.

Universal Pictures tried to give "The Mummy" another go in 2017 with Tom Cruise as top billing, but that middling outing dismantled the company's plans of forming a Dark Universe and instead shifted to singular horror or monster flicks that were more or less better received.

This new edition barely references the original film from nearly a century ago, even moreso the popular franchise starring Brendan Fraser which is now getting a revival (hence the director's name in the title).

Cronin really stood out with his 2023 sophomore film "Evil Dead Rise" that having this much credit for just his third movie seems a bold move.

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The filmmaker chucks in all the necessary jumpscares and gore required of a monster movie, but a tighter runtime and script (Cronin also did the screenplay) would have given the story more due diligence.

By all means, "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" is not a terrible film, but we are now in era where "Hereditary," "Weapons" and even "Sinners" have elevated the horror genre to massive credit.

Even monster films like "Frankenstein" and "The Invisible Man" have shown there has been creative growth in this space and this new film would benefited from more of that.

If anything this new film is reminiscent of the horror projects we've seen before from producers Jason Blum and James Wan but again, this is a new era of horror.

Some admiration should go to newcomer Natalie Grace as the titular mummy, her disturbing performance giving scary movie children like Regan MacNeil and Damien Thorn a run for their money.

Jack Reynor and Laia Costa really do their best with what was given, with May Calamawy and Verónica Falcón having a real go at it.

At least this shows that large studios like Warner Bros. are putting their faith in filmmakers to fulfill their vision, something that the industry needs to maintain to keep cinema alive.

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