The Mummy: Film critics haven’t been kind about the new Tom Cruise movie

Starring Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe and Sofia Boutella, the movie has been panned by film reviewers who have described it as a “monster fail” and “an unholy mess”.

The bad reviews will be especially alarming for Universal because The Mummy is the first film in their Dark Universe franchise.

Future movies in the franchise include Bride of Frankenstein (Angelina Jolie has been linked to the film), The Invisible Man (starring Johnny Depp) and Frankenstein(starring Javier Bardem).

But the Dark Universe is off to a rocky start and the critics have been ruthless.

Here’s what some of them have had to say about The Mummy:

• “Not only is The Mummy the worst movie that Tom Cruise has ever made, it’s also obviously the worst movie that Tom Cruise has ever made — it stands out like a flat note on a grand piano.

“It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that it never could have been good. It’s an irredeemable disaster from start to finish, an adventure that entertains only via glimpses of the adventure it should have been. It’s the kind of movie that Tom Cruise became a household name by avoiding at all costs.” — IndieWire

• “Though occasionally enlivened by Cruise’s willingness to endure a non-stop gauntlet of humiliation, this is a modern blockbuster in many of the worst ways; it’s noisy but rarely exciting, heavy on whizzing and whirling special effects but light on wonder.” — A.V. Club

• “Tom Cruise should have played the Mummy — that way his face would be swathed in bandages and his fans wouldn’t have to see him sweat so hard to get this lumbering loser off the ground.” — Rolling Stone

• “It will be argued that this one was made not for the critics but for the fans. Which is no doubt true. Every con game is played with suckers in mind.” — New York Times

• “The Cruisemeister himself is left high and dry by plot lurches which leave him doing his boggle-eyed WTF expression. In one scene he is nude so we can see what undeniably great shape he’s in. The flabby, shapeless film itself doesn’t have his muscle-tone.” — The Guardian

• “The Mummy is the sort of film that feels like four different stories written by ten different people (and, sure enough, the script and story are credited to six different writers, including Kurtzman, David Koepp, and Christopher McQuarrie).

“The nonsensical story would matter less if The Mummy would get out of Cruise’s way and let him do what he does best. Instead, it buries him beneath punishing dialogue scenes and surrounds him with unconvincing and unoriginal special effects.” — ScreenCrush

• “The biggest tragedy is that The Mummy isn’t telling a story because that story needs to be told. The protagonist’s journey is completely undermined by Tom Cruise’s stalwart affability, and the villain’s formulaic plot has no subtext to speak of. The Mummy is defiantly not ‘about’ anything other than promoting its own franchise, and if that’s all this series has to offer, why would we want to see any more of it?” — Crave