Van Helsing Was Putting Universal Monsters Into Boring Blockbusters Long Before Tom Cruise's The Mummy Showed Up

Don't you hate it when a movie has an excellent opening scene and then everything that comes after it is just crummy? It's like chowing down on a delectable appetizer prior to being served rotten meat as your proper meal, the already substandard main course gets its awfulness hammered home by coming hot off the heels of the delicious appetizer you just scarfed down. That's what happens with Van Helsing, which opens with a black-and-white sequence that feels like Universal Monsters Fan-Fiction come to life as Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) plots to use a new monstrous creation of Victor Frankenstein for his own wicked devices, a plan that Frankenstein's Monster (Shuler Hensley) does not particularly care for. This results in the monster grabbing the corpse of his now deceased "father" and running to a windmill that is promptly set on fire, resulting in the apparent death of the creature much to Dracula's anger.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back More Than Earns the Distinction of Being One of Tom Cruise's Most Tedious Movies

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is the perfect movie for people who were chomping at the bit to see a Tom Cruise blockbuster worse than The Mummy. It's a total snoozefest for everyone else, one that can't even muster up enough competent fistfights to satiate action film junkies. This Edward Zwick directed project looks and acts like a USA Network TV movie that inexplicably managed to cast one of the biggest movie stars of all-time in its lead role. While I found the first Jack Reacher to be a mixed bag, that very same motion picture looks like a John Wick movie in comparison to this turkey of a sequel.

Where To Even Begin With The Cinematic Cataclysm That Is The Mummy?

The Mummy is so much fun, I really was shocked by how well-made it was. Sure, it gets more than a little obsessed with generic CGI mayhem, but The Mummy is a ton of fun, with strong lead performances that make casual conversations between the characters super entertaining, I'd totally recommend giving the 1999 version of The Mummy a watch! The 2017 take on The Mummy on the other hand....there's no easy way to put it, so lemme rip this band-aid right off and just say it: The Mummy is a full on disaster, a film that can't be counted on to deliver solid scares, originality or competent action. If you told this movie to go make two pieces of toast, I'm sure it would end up burning down the entire house in the process, that's how massively incompetent it is.

The Mummy Returns Is An Overstuffed But Mostly Diverting Follow-Up

Once The Mummy premiered in May 1999 to solid reviews and strong box office, well, we all know what was bound to come next....a sequel! Just as The Mummy had returned for four further adventures in the 1940's after the initial 1932 Mummy movie, Brendan Fraser and pals would also be coming back to the silver screen to fight more undead baddies in another motion picture. Per usual for typical summer blockbuster sequels, the scope and budget was enlarged, though, also like many summer blockbuster sequels, the results weren't exactly better than its predecessor despite a grander size in the production.

The Mummy (1999) Review

In the 19 year interm between the third and fourth Indiana Jones movies, we had a smattering of globe-trotting old-timey adventure movies looking to replicate the same financial success of o'l Indiana Jones. Most notably, we had the two National Treasure movies, the two Lara Croft features, Sahara, you get the picture. Also in the mix were probably the most financially successful features in this trend, the first two Stephen Sommers Mummy movies (there would be a third one in this series but it was released a little over two months after the fourth Indiana Jones movie), which updated the original Boris Karloff horror movie by adding larger-scale action and a lighter tone to the mix, which actually makes for quite the fun adventure.

The Original 1932 Mummy Movie Is More Tedious Than Chilling

And so, in preparation for that new Mummy movie that opens in theaters everywhere this Friday, I've decided to take a deep dive into the Universal Mummy franchise by way of watching all five original Universal Mummy movies as well as the first two Brendan Fraser Mummy movies (I've already seen the third in that series). This journey begins with, of course, the very first Universal Mummy movie, the one in 1932 that kicked things off for the franchise and reaffirmed Boris Karloff (who also played Frankenstein's Monster for Universal in this era) as a prominent fixture of monster movie mayhem in this era.

Johnny Depp Set To Play The Invisible Man In The Revamped Universal Monsters Universe!

One of the most interesting forthcoming franchises in Hollywood has to be the revamped version of the classic Universal Monster Universe. Back in the 30's, Universal beat Marvel Studios to the punch by decades by having various scary figures like Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolfman rub shoulders. This isn't the first time these individuals have received the remake treatment (The Mummy got a trilogy of Brendan Fraser led remakes while The Wolfman was bestowed a super expensive update in 2010), but this is the first time someones trying to replicate the shared universe aspect of these old features.

Editorial: The Non-Marvel Shared Universe Movies Need To Stop

(Or: What Hath The Avengers Wrought)

After Marvel's extremely risk plan for combining stand-alone movies into one massive feature film called The Avengers paid off big time, studios began to scramble to join in on the newest cinematic craze; shared universes. The first franchise not from Marvel Studios to test this out was The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which took it's 2012 Andrew Garfield reboot and tired to stretch it to include hints at future spin-offs and sequels. The film was a calamity quality-wise and disappointing financially, which you'd think studios would take as a sign that not all movies need a shared universe.

Nope.