The Mummy (2017)

(The 2017 Nostalgia-Ween opening is shown; but this time it says "Nostalgia-Ween meets Cinemassacre's Monster Madness", with Vincent Price's evil laugh from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video added. The graves in the Joke Cemetery are as follows: "Subtle Johnny Depp", "Last Airbender 2", "Bill", and "Just kidding, you can't kill Bill"; the Simpsons couch gag in the Channel Awesome studios shows Rob, NC, Tamara and Malcolm sitting on the couch, and then they turn into Super Mecha Death Christ; open on a listless-looking NC sitting there, with his head resting on his hand)

NC: (monotone) Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to. And do I really have to?

(Cut to The Nerd via transmission)

Nerd: We have to.

NC: (resigned sigh) This is The Mummy with Tom Cruise.

(The title for the movie is shown, followed by clips)

NC (vo): This was supposed to be the big start to, what else, a cinematic universe, one Universal wanted to create with classic monster movies. Because everything has to be a goddamn universe now!

NC: Christ, I'm surprised the Teletubbies don't have a cinematic universe!

Nerd: (pointing at NC) Don't give them ideas!

NC: (covering his mouth in shock) Oh, shit! (in the corner, a shot of "Teletubbies vs. Care Bears" appears, and the NC notices) Dammit!

Nerd (vo): The film bombed, throwing their future dark universe films into question. I really wanted to talk about this movie, because, in some respects, this comes full circle.

NC: (confused) What?

Nerd: (moving his finger around in a squiggly circle) Okay, it's a very shittily-drawn circle, but it's still a circle. (shrugs)

NC: Did you just make up the word "shittily"?

​Nerd:​ My point is...

Nerd (vo): ...Universal invented the shared universe concept in the 40s. (​Posters of Frankenstein meets The Wolfman, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters pop up on screen​) Crossovers, versus, team-ups, all these were originally done with the classic Universal monsters. Marvel and everybody else is technically copying what they started. Somewhere down the line, that fad faded, but as films like (posters of...) Freddy vs. Jason, ​(Captain America) Civil War, and Batman vs. Superman​ became so popular, suddenly Universal wanted to jump back onboard. So now, ironically, Universal is copying what Marvel and all these other films did, forgetting that Universal was the one that came up with this idea to begin with.

NC:​ And that's all this movie is: a copy.

NC (vo): A copy of every overused cliche in current cinematic universes, trying to set up the next five movies rather than focusing on making one good one.

Nerd:​ I actually wanted to see this movie succeed, because I want the Universal monsters to continue in some way.

Nerd (vo):​ They're not as popular nowadays as they should be, so it's important to bring them back in the public minds. It's like Batman or James Bond: (The collages of all the actors who played the mentioned characters are shown) we all have our favorite actors who played the roles, (Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger as the Jokers are followed) but we still accept different versions, and the best ones can create new timeless interpretations.

NC:​ Does this film do that?

Nerd:​ I think you know the answer.

NC:​ I know the answer. Let's dive into (finger quotes) the Dark Universe's Mummy.

(The movie starts with a stylized opening, featuring the brown-colored Earth, the gloomy sky and the caption "DARK UNIVERSE" sliding up)

Nerd (vo): Look at this. They're already declaring it "The Dark Universe". Ooh, we're so excited. There's gonna be more of something that we don't even know if we like yet.

(The quote from Egyptian prayer of resurrection, "Death is but the doorway to new life. We live today, we shall live again. In many new forms shall we return", is followed)

NC (vo): Followed by a quote, because...

NC: ...They just want a quote.

Nerd: Yeah, they always do that to make films seem more important. Hey, how about this for a more fitting quote?

(The mock quote "This movie's gonna suck" by "Everyone" is then shown)

NC: Truth in advertising.

(A fire spark appears, and we cut to 1127 AD, where several English crusader knights bury an Egyptian ruby within the tomb of one of their members)

Nerd (vo): It opens with...medieval knights?

NC (vo): Oh, God! It's Transformers 5! Kill it with underperforming ticket sales!

Nerd (vo): Too late.

(Now we are shown the modern-day England. In the sewer, a mysterious man named Henry Jekyll is authorized to investigate the place where some workers have found the tomb)

Nerd (vo): Wait. Now we're in present-day England? Does this film even know what film it is?

NC: Well, we gotta show...

(Jekyll is played by Russell Crowe)

NC (vo): ...Russell Crowe is in this movie.

NC: Just to...

(And then we're shown the New Kingdom of Egypt via flashback and introduced to Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) and her father, King Menehptre (Selva Rasalingam))

NC (vo): ...cut immediately away from him.

Nerd (vo): Oh, now we're in Egypt? Thank God, I almost forgot this was a Mummy movie.

NC (vo): The story hasn't even been set up yet, and there's already two scenes you can cut! Does someone paste over a draft of the script without a racing part of the other draft?

Jekyll: (narrating) Princess Ahmanet. Beautiful, cunning, and ruthless.

Nerd (vo): The mummy this time is not Imhotep, but rather Princess Ahmanet, which is a welcome change. Before, all we had was (pictures of...) the Bride of Frankenstein and maybe Dracula's daugther. (The male classic Universal monsters are shown) It was kind of a sausage fest, you know. In most incarnations of the story, there's usually a mummy princess. This is just putting the mummy princess in the spotlight, making her the main monster. She has her own unique style and would look cool in a lineup of other monsters, so this is not a bad starting point.

NC: The problem is, everything else about her makes no goddamn sense.

NC (vo): In this one, it's not a forbidden love that forces her to give up her soul, it's because a baby brother is born, stopping her from becoming queen. So she uses the same spark effect you've literally just saw...

(After summoning the god of darkness named Set, Ahmanet lights up the torches in his tomb, in which the Dagger of Set is kept)

NC (vo): ...to quote, "get revenge". Yeah, that's how they put it.

Jekyll: (narrating) Vowing revenge, she made a choice to embrace evil.

Nerd: Revenge for what?

NC (vo): I don't know. Revenge against the baby for literally being born? But, okay. She kills the kid and the mother and the Pharaoh. What happens next?

(After Ahmanet kills her family, her pupils double. Then she attempts to sacrifice her lover to Set)

Jekyll: (narrating) She vowed to bring Set, the god of death, into our world, in the body of a mortal man. Together, they would take their vengeance upon humanity.

(NC and Nerd blink in confusion)

NC: Where did that come from?!

Nerd: I have no idea what this chick is about!

NC (vo): First, she wants to be queen, then kill her brother, then bonk a demon, then kill the demon to release the demon to take over the world?

Nerd: That's like saying after Bruce Wayne's parents died...

(Michael Keaton as Batman is shown)

Nerd (vo): ...he wanted to become Batman...

(The Gotham City background changes to a flower shop)

Nerd (vo): ...open a flower shop...

(The background is now a disco party)

Nerd (vo): ...become a disco dancer...

(Three ice creams are then shown with the captions "Justice", "Dark Justice", and "Strawberry #2")

Nerd (vo): ...and create three new ice creams!

Nerd: One motivation is enough!

(Ahmanet is captured by her father's priests and condemned to be mummified alive for eternity)

NC (vo): After becoming the Enchantress, she's stopped before she can release her devil boyfriend, or however that was supposed to work, and she's mummified.

Jekyll: (narrating) Her body carried far from Egypt.

NC: Yeah, no shit far, it's friggin' Iraq!

(The map is shown to illustrate that Egypt and Iraq are pretty far from each other)

NC (vo): They make it look like a small stroll, but Iraq's a little bit of a skip!