I haven't done a movie in a while on this blog. This is an interesting case of a movie, not because it's new [made in the same year as I am posting about it]. Is that it did well, but not well-known? That's because this movie is from Spain, but did get some worldwide release. I had heard about the movie and was kind of surprised it did well and even was like "I heard about this movie" when it was brought up. "Mummies" not to be confused with "
The Mummy", "
The Mummy", "
The Mummy" , or "
The Mummy", or "Mummy Dearest" (that last one isn't real, yet), is again a 2023 movie, and is Spanish animation that Warner Bros. decided "eh let's distribute it". This is a movie I thought that would end as a random movie in a couple years on Tubi, but it didn't it was Hulu. (moving up!) Mummies is directed by Juan Jesús García Galocha and the screenplay by
Javier López Barreira and Jordi Gasull.
Mummies grossed $52 million worldwide, against its budget of $12 million. It's the number 9th Spanish made movie in that ranking outside of its home market. (
source) That's pretty cool.
As I said before, I heard about this movie coming out, it was apparently delayed a bit, it was supposed to come out 2021, apparently. [I wonder why it was delayed what was going on then? Hmm anyway] I didn't even know what it was but did see a quick trailer thing and wrote it down it to pick up on later, which might be a bad idea- for me. Of course, you use a song like "Walk Like an Egyptian" or any other Bangles song, you've got me, well maybe.
I am also interested in media/animation that comes from outside the US. which is another reason why this movie made it my radar, before it was more known or whatever. Also, this is the part where I say the movie has an English dub, that's what we're working from. They apparently worked with the United Kingdom to the dub, so it's British talk, so we have a Spanish movie about kind of Egypt (more on that soon), with a British English dub.
The movie starts with what be an incident where a character named Thut (too-it) [spell check is going to hate this post today] was a chariot racer but one day his wheel fell off and crashed. The awkward cut could make one think he died. Umm... hmm. The movie also sets our villain an archeologist. What's his goal? To be famous, that's what drives him. A simple goal. His name is Lord Sylvester Carnaby, voiced by Hugh Bonneville , whom you may know from Downton Abbey or at least know of the series like I do, since didn't watch it. There's also a running gag with him where his mom calls and they used the "Psycho" sound. Which someone found funny. I'm not going to be saying the movie is perfect. Though I do hope they had his mother be a running gag ,because mummy, mummy. British... I'm going back now.
Silvester has found a tomb, like archeologists do, and notices that the mummy is not in the tomb. (He should have really checked if the mummy is in the museum) He also notices there's a portal that leads to the underworld where mummies reside. I'm not sure why the mummies or Egyptians or whomever, yeah this going to be something I'll mention soon, would just everyone about the underworld. but I guess we need plot. Also Silvester has two bumbling people working with him because sure. I do think it was funny later on in the movie, he can't even tell them apart- he was aware after all.
He should really go after whoever made his moustache like that
I will also give a post spoiler: I didn't hate or dislike the movie, but it does have some things that do make it bit weak and could been improved slightly. A balanced approach as always. (Also, it's really hard to be angry in text form, except on Twitter... Facebook.. Pinterest?)
The movie's intro is kind of creative, while the music for the start sounds generic, the intro is colorful and nice. The movie has a setting of being a world were apparently mummies are alive and the people though look more like they would be if they weren't mummies. The world seems to be like an ancient city you'd think of as in ancient Egypt but also feeling doing like an ancient spin of current things. There's a guy being a traffic light we see kids throwing around small piece of stones to send messages and look kind of like phones. I do like the concept here of having a kind of blend thing going on. I will mention though, overthinking it might hurt a bit. The people -mummies look like they aren't dead, so they weren't going for a "Tutenstein" vibe of being a dead person but alive, uh undead. The only really mummy thing the characters have here is that they are wrapped up in gauze and if a bright enough light, in our world is shown upon them they give off a 'skeleton'? look. Everything seems fine other wise, there's no jokes about body parts falling off or in that vain. I don't think it was a bad idea , there is some sense to the idea that this the after life and they have full skin and stuff. The other ways the movie could have made the look work was have it be an alternate parallel universe where ancient Egypt still runs the way it did or the fun part that that we think of, or time travel, time travel works.
It's downtown Hartford
I will talk about how it looks with characters more soon, but the animation is good. They spent $12 million on this movie and doesn't look bad, they could have really cut some corners, but they didn't- or give the appearance. Some would try to compare it to Pixar/ Disney or DreamWorks/Illumination which is a dumb thing to do. This is a smaller operation and not even a Warner Bros. made the movie affair, from the country of Spain. I'm not going to say wow it doesn't look like "Minions Rise of Gru" or "The Good Dinosaur" which had budgets higher than this movie, where you could make Mummies , Mummies 2: Electric Tomb-alo, Mummies 3: Return of the Mummies, Sekhem: the Movie, Mummies 4: The Last Pharoah: Part 1, Mummies 5: The Last Pharaoh: Part 2: Part 1 , Sekhem 2, and Mummies 6: The Last Pharaoh :Part 2 :The Final Beginning, if you used the same budget of this movie each time. (Really went long on that huh?) I think it looks good. I don't think it would be bad to look at for the 88 minutes it goes.
Back to the story, Thut (voiced in English by Joe Thomas, whom the UK readers, hello! will know from "The Inbetweeners") was the guy we saw at the start, he is now like those retired sports stars who lives off his past, he meets with fans and ladies want him. (Just like umm nevermind) It also helps that he's young....uhhhh ok. He's also afraid of commitment an doesn't want to marry, I wonder how that will end up in the - uh oh. The next character is his little brother, Sekhem (sek-him)(voiced by Santiago Winder, whom you may know as the voice of Noddy from "Noddy, Toyland Detective", random) He plays the spunky younger brother role who looks up to his older brother. It also looks like Thut takes takes care of his brother like a single parent. They never showed any parents, which also makes me wonder, did-can-their parents die? There is mention of like Thut being afraid of being killed at times in the movie, so I'm a little confused. Sekhem wants his brother to get back into racing because he thinks it's really cool and thinks his brother was really good at it. But because of the INCENIDENT mentioned earlier - he won't.
That crash was pretty cool
Starting with Thut, I do like how the character is introduced, while he's being embraced by fans and ladies, and taking autographs, he does give a bit of confidence without feeling too arrogant or unlikeable, With his brother, he's happy to see him, and seems to take care of him. You also see he's not as confident as he showed by remembering the fear of the bad incident. I like how he does put on a fake confidence or maybe it's a bit of it he had from before the bad thing, either way, it works. We see him be kind like helping an elderly lady across the street. The story isn't really about having to change as a person because of being over arrogant or unlikable to being someone who isn't and is, but someone who is shaken by an event that was bad and feels kind of lost about who they are; I think they went a good direction. I'll do a bit more on him, later.
Weren't you in Downton Abbey?
The third main character in this movie runs into Thut, literally. Their first interaction is brief. She is the princess and even does that thing where she wants to be more than just the princess. This is Nefer, (voiced by Elanor Tomlinson in English, I'm going to mention she was in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging because I want to mention that. Her signing voice is Karina Pasian, who is an American singer, and can speak multiple languages). Nefer gets a song , she sings that she's kind of tired of things being monotonous and wants to do more. Yes, one of those songs. No, it's a musical movie, but will have some music, but there's a reason for she wants to be a singer- but princesses can't do that. I also kind of have to like that they decided that it wasn't just some random song, but that she was singing it and some others heard her singing, that was kind of funny. The other part of her plot is the plot she doesn't want to get married. I wonder who will get picked?
She wants a whole new world.be part of our world... also is surprised to see you
Her father , the pharaoh (voiced by Sean Bean, that's right Sean Bean!) tells his daughter that the phoenix bird with the help the goddess of love be picking her husband today. (That's helpful) Yes, they are doing a standard thing here where she doesn't want to, doesn't feel ready and wants things to move on. The pharaoh seems to be a nice guy, but he also wants to keep tradition and hopes that his daughter will understand and want to keep tradition. Also, there's a stargate... what?
I have a meeting some guy named Moses at 3pm
Sekhem is playing with a boomerang. (But wait a minute...how is) This is the part where'd say that the mummy movie about living mummies that also have their normal skin and flesh and also can do pop music is being silly in having a boomerang, but (big but) no they did their homework. Ancient Egypt had boomerangs. Though not a really a children's toy, but the movie gets points for doing that, it's alright to have some fun too. He's trying to throw it into a ringed statue and a lady opens a window at the same time throwing the boomerang off course, and hits the phoenix of love which lands where Skehem and Thut live. Of course, you can see where this is going.
This thing will help you get a mate, but not get channel 58.
Now that we have our three mummies and a pet croc of Skehem's named Croc, we can get to the characters' styling. It is pretty basic, the people-mummies plus the livings are kind of basic there's that a lot that stands out for them. Except for the two henchmen they did make the people look different from each other to stand out. When the movie enters the mummy world and goes to the children I can tell Sekhem out from the other kids. Thut and Nefer don't look each other. Humans in the living world don't look the same, and it works. Also someone really wanted to make Thut and Nefer have an attractive look, so good for those character designers. Croc is interesting as the only creature we really see in the film, it's a classic every animal acts like a dog thing, but he's cute and if this was a bigger movie there'd be Croc toys and plushies all over the place. Of the mummy trio, Sekhem stands out the most in design, not just because he's a kid -whatever that means here- though that make him the shortest, he's also bald minus the little side lock there. I think if they had more budget or had a way to work in more expressions especially for him, it would have been even more interesting. I can't say I feel they didn't put any though in the designs and the effort, again I think the movie works well with its limitation.
How you do fellow, mummies
You can see where part of the plot is going. Nefer and Thut are arranged to be married. Thut doesn't want to marry Nefer and she doesn't want to marry her. They have the clear goal of not wanting that. To be frank, the movie is not going really going to do anything of a surprise any different of where you might be expecting it to go. (Unless you were expecting something different.) It's a simple movie, simple doesn't mean bad, it means it's not going for high complexity. I do like they do at least add nuance a bit. I do wonder how different anything they say or do is different in the original Spanish. Yes, Nefer has simple motivations she wants to be a singer and do that and that's fine. Thut finds out that if he goes against wishes of the god, he'll lose his eyes and tongue. (That's a bit much) One more thing to um set up for other part of the plot is a ring (I don't mean on the phone, Santa Baby) that they give to Thut to hold until the wedding day. Which is kind of stupid thing to do, like why? Hold the thing until the day of the wedding.
Here's your plot device, sir.
Since that's coming up soon, I'm kind of sad that this whole movie won't be taking place in this strange version of whatever they are trying do here. The idea of ancient world that also things like old fashion phones, the ones where you hold it up to your mouth and speak with the ear piece on the side held up to the ear. [ This thing] You see kids playing on stone smart phone shaped things. It's kind of messy fun. There's a part where apparently some guys are called to make it night time. There's a lot of fun moving parts to this movie that I wish had more going on here. I'll this here, this environment and still having Nefer and Thut get to know each other as they find ways to not get married and have Sekhem and Croc there doing stuff could have worked too, no need for a villain and etc. Oh well.
Good thing, the guards picked the right one, would have been odd if they thought it was him or Croc.
I do like Thut and Nefer's interactions and yeah you can kind of tell that it's written that way. It also could have been badly done. Thut works well in this because he's not some playboy or big shot acting character who is like "Hey I get to marry a Princess and be all rich and stuff"; He doesn't act the way they could have stock had him act. Nefer does point out that he's some chariot racer, but that's her way of trying to make sure the wedding doesn't happen and that she didn't have a good view of him when she thought he was just standing the road there, but she's more against this whole thing than being against him for being "beneath her or something". Their banter is kind of fun and they are at least likeable, we're not supposed to be annoyed by them so, good work?
They look like people who just met... oh yeah that's right
more after the jump
