Whilst Brandon Fraser has all but disappeared from the big screen, his legacy of The Mummy franchise lives on – and now even gets a reboot with none other than Tom Cruise following in his footsteps. The original series is known for its outright silliness, and this update tries to keep some of that whilst at the same time taking a slightly darker approach: suitable at least in name, as it is the first movie in Universal’s so-called ‘Dark Universe’.
Now how best to describe this directorial debut of Russell Crowe… A pretentious hotchpotch or a melodramatic mishmash?
Connor (Crowe) is the water diviner, an Australian farmer with the gift to find things deep under the soil. At his farm, he uses this rare skill to find water in drought-stricken Victoria. When his three sons join the battle of Gallipoli in 1919 they die amongst thousands of other ANZAC soldiers. Guilted into action by his wife, Connor travels to Turkey to use his special skill to find the bodies of his sons so he can bring them home for a proper burial.