An ancient Egyptian princess escapes her tomb and sets about finding a human host for the Egyptian god of death, because a deal’s a deal. To paraphrase Dr. Hannibal Lecter, one of the monsters in the vastly superior horror hybrid (there, horror-murder mystery; here, horror-action adventure) The Silence of the Lambs: “No, no, no — you were doing fine. You were brisk and straightforward; you had established characters, story, and tone with efficiency and even some wit; and now this ham-handed segue into a superhero-style soap opera. Tut-tut-tut; it won't do.” I was curious enough — even hopeful enough — about Universal’s decision to exhume its classic monsters to hold on until the zombie crusader frogmen started swimming after amoral (but maybe-redeemable) soldier of fortune Tom Cruise. No one would blame you for checking out sooner, however — maybe right around the time Cruise meets this would-be franchise’s version of Marvel’s Nick Fury. That’s when the scary-ish stuff stops, the bloviating begins, the action goes big, and the movie shifts attention from itself to a glorious, sequel-spangled future. Whoops. Alex Kurtzman directs; Annabelle Wallis co-stars. (2017) — Matthew Lickona
This movie is not currently in theaters.