Mummy, The

Story

In The Mummy, Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and his buddy Vale (Jake Johnson) are US soldiers who moonlight as treasure hunters. They come under fire in Iraq and, with unintentional military help, find the prison tomb of the evil Egyptian Princess Ahmanet (Sophia Boutella).

The Princess has been erased from history and hidden beneath the sands of Mesopotamia in the hope that she’ll never again be able to unleash her horror on humanity. With the help of English archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), Nick and Vale try to take the Princess’s sarcophagus (stone coffin) to England. This unleashes a series of terrifying events.

Nick awakens in the London morgue to find that he is Ahmanet’s chosen one. She’s determined to use his body as the temple through which the god of the dead can take human form. Nick and Jenny, with the help of Dr Jekyll (Russell Crowe), try to find a way to break the curse and stop Ahmanet before she destroys the world. At the same time, they must battle Ahmanet’s ever-increasing army of the undead.

Themes

Death; resurrection; unnatural phenomena; the thirst for power; immortality

Violence

The Mummy has a lot of violence. For example:

Ahmanet slices her arm open with a dagger and uses her own blood for a ritual.
Ahmanet slices the throats of her father, his wife and their baby son. Blood sprays across the room.
Ahmanet is about to stab a man to death with a dagger when guards grab her.
Ahmanet is mummified alive.
A group of insurgents stab Nick and Vale. They return fire but are convinced they’ll die. A US air attack on the village saves them.
In a vision Nick sees Ahmanet about to stab him.
Vale stabs an army captain in the chest twice.
Nick shoots Vale three times as Vale tries to stab them all.
Ahmanet puts her mummified finger through a man’s eye and into his brain.
Ahmanet attacks anyone she can and sucks the life out of their faces. This leaves her victims looking like undead mummies, while she slowly takes human form. This happens often throughout the movie.
While trying to flee from an undead creature Nick is attacked by hundreds of huge rats.
There are many fight scenes in which Nick fights off the undead. He steps on a head and its skull explodes. He also puts his legs and hands through the undead and rips them apart or bashes them with bricks or anything that’s handy.
Nick stabs Ahmanet and hits her with a candlestick.
Dr Jekyll’s team subdue Ahmanet with darts and hooks shot into her body. Nick is also shot with a dart.
Ahmanet is being mummified with mercury in her veins. She screams about how it burns until Nick begs Dr Jekyll to stop.
Dr Jekyll tries to break Nick’s ribs, and Nick knocks his tooth out.
Jenny must fight off one of Dr Jekyll’s guards. They wrestle, knock things over and slam into glass.
Ahmanet throws Nick into the air. He slams against a wall and later a crypt. She slams into him, and there’s a horrible crack. Nick screams as if his bones are being broken by the blows.
Nick stabs himself in the chest with a ritual knife.
Nick and Ahmanet attack each other, then Nick sucks the life out of Ahmanet and she returns to mummy form.

Content that may disturb children

Under 5
In addition to the violent scenes mentioned above, The Mummy has many scenes that could scare or disturb children aged under five years. For example:

As Ahmanet performs a ritual, tattoos appear all over her naked body and her eyes begin to change. She appears to have two eyes within each eye. The same thing later happens to Nick. The effect is very creepy.
Hooded men chant in a burial chamber as they bury a body. The music is intense and eerie.
A spider bites Vale and his eyes glaze over with white. He takes a raspy breath and then his face changes to look like one of the undead.
Two officers look for the sarcophagus in some wreckage at night. The scene shows screaming crows and unwound bandages before the officers are caught, killed and slowly transformed into undead creatures.
There are creepy, undead creatures scurrying through a church, and they close in on Nick as he looks around. Four of them seize him and hold him down on an altar while Ahmanet prepares to stab him with an ancient dagger.
As Nick and Jenny flee in a car, undead creatures follow them through the woods, bashing their way through the windshield and attacking them in the car. Nick smashes them into the trees but the car flips over and over in a horrible smash. Jenny is trapped inside while Ahmanet slowly approaches through the foggy forest. Nick tries to fight her off, but he is tossed into the air and violently flung against trees.
Undead crusaders often appear from nowhere and chase Nick and Jenny through underground tunnels.
After sacrificing himself using the ritual dagger Nick screams at Ahmanet, his face contorting, in a non-human, terrifying way.

From 5-8
In addition to the violent scenes and scary visual images mentioned above, The Mummy has some scenes that could scare or disturb children in this age group. For example:

As the main characters are flying towards England in a plane, a swarm of black birds fills the sky and flies into the plane. The birds blast through the glass and destroy engines. Feathers and pieces fly everywhere as the plane begins to break apart and the passengers are tossed around. Nick helps Jenny escape with a parachute. There is horrible screaming as the plane goes down.
An undead version of Vale in a bullet-ridden shirt and with a zombie-like face appears throughout the movie.
In a rage Ahmanet causes glass to shatter throughout London as Nick and Jenny run for their lives through the streets.
Ahmanet summons the sands of Egypt, which she blasts through the streets of London, destroying buildings and engulfing people. As the sand comes to an open space a terrifying face appears to be screaming from the middle of it. Ahmanet stands in the middle of the storm. She is partially bandaged, grasping her knife and summoning evil forces.
Ahmanet summons the crusaders from their crypts below the streets of London to help her capture Nick. He and Jenny try to escape through an underground subway system but are hunted from every direction.
Jenny is terrified. Nick tells her to stay with him as Ahmanet silently swims up behind and grabs Jenny, dragging her underwater to her death.

From 8-13

Children aged 8-13 years might be frightened by some of the scenes mentioned above.

Over 13

Children aged over13 years might be frightened by some of the scenes mentioned above.

Sexual references

The Mummy has some sexual references. For example:

Vale is told to ‘Get a “ho”’.
Jenny tells a colonel that she and Nick slept together and that it only lasted 15 seconds. Nick brings this up on a couple of occasions.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

The Mummy shows some use of substances. For example:

Nick and Jenny are in a bar, and Nick is drinking heavily.
Dr Jekyll offers Nick a drink, and Nick downs it in one gulp.
Dr Jekyll injects himself with a serum that helps prevent him from turning evil.

Product placement

There is no product placement in The Mummy.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in The Mummy.

Ideas to discuss with your children

The main messages from this movie are that there is good in (almost) everyone, that love is stronger than hate and that, ultimately, good will conquer evil.

But the sustained suspense and violence in The Mummy, combined with its supernatural themes involving death, resurrection and unnatural phenomena, make this movie unsuitable for children under 15 years. If children over 15 years watch this movie, we recommend parental guidance for them.

Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include loyalty, selflessness, honesty and courage.

This movie could also give you the chance to talk with your children about the importance of respect for ancient customs and cultures of the past.