Almost a decade after the release of the hammy fantasy adventure The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, director Alex Kurtzman attempts to reboot the horror franchise with this action-packed thriller set in the present day, which positions Tom Cruise at the centre of the special effects-laden destruction.

He plays tomb raider Nick Morton, who travels to Egypt with plucky archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) to retrieve an ancient hidden artefact.

In the process, Nick accidentally unearths the resting place of Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who was buried alive hundreds of years ago after she murdered King Menehptre (Selva Rasalingam) in order to seize the throne.

Nick and a team of military specialists transport Ahmanet’s sarcophagus back to the UK.

En route, the airplane is brought down by a flock of crows.

While Jenny manages to escape the fireball by parachute, Nick is trapped inside. Miraculously, he survives the inferno without a scratch and enigmatic scientist Dr Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe) reveals that Nick has been chosen by a resurrected Ahmanet to help her destroy the modern world and refashion it as her new dominion.

This is the first instalment of the first Universal Studios’ ’Dark Universe’ series of film, which will feature rebooted version of some of the classic horror films of our time.

It’s fair to say that this version of ’The Mummy’ doesn’t bode well for the future.

The storyline is intended to follow on from the successful series of films made between 1999 and 2008, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz.

However, the characters in the new film have no where near the charisma, the charm or the dynamism of the older films.

The curious thing about this film is that, the incredibly well-staged plane crash sequence aside, the effects and the bloated CGI scenes aren’t anywhere near as effective as the earlier films.

Swarms of insects, re-animated mummified corpses and many more horrific scenes are rendered slightly dull and uninteresting, partly by the dimly lit sequences and partly because it has all been done before.

Essentially, The Mummy serves to introduce us into the Dark Universe, and will use Dr Jekyll as a means to tie in other strands of classic horror films.

That there might be more of these films to come is a chilling thought in itself.

by PA reviewer/Mike Wade

twitter:@mwislandlife

The mummy (15)

Broadway Cinema

Friday to Wednesday 7.30pm (3D)

Saturday and Sunday 4.30pm (2D)