Lee Cronin’s The Mummy ★★

Released: 17 April 2026

Director: Lee Cronin

Starring: Laia Costa, Jack Reynor, May Calamawy, Billie Roy, Natalie Grace

For a studio horror film titled ‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ there is a distinct lack of authorship or ownership in any part of Cronin’s direction over the course of this two-hour and fourteen minute family drama by way of exorcism-flick. Peeling off the back of several iterations of the franchise, formerly dating back to the 1932 and starring Boris Karloff in spectacular fashion, this lacklustre reprise and so-called reinvention of the wheel is simply all over the shop and dreadfully bland.

Charlie Cannon, Jack Reynor, is an investigative journalist who now lives in Cairo with his pregnant wife Larissa, the marvellous Laia Costa who played Victoria in Sebastian Schipper’s masterful one-take film of the same name, and their two children Katie and Sebastian. Cronin establishes surface-level familial bonds early on, creating the ground work for the domestic drama that ensues, and for the first-act there is a sense of order and decorum within the family. After a brother and sisterly scuffle, Katie finds herself caught up in the arms of ‘The Magician’ who ends up stealing her away from a family in the eye of a desert storm. Chaos ensues and tempers flare when ranking officer May Calamawy, Detective Dalia Zaki, translates between Arabic and English for her high-ranking officials who believe Charlie and Larissa are in on the whole thing. It is eventually revealed that Katie has been confined to a sarcophagus and wrapped in parchment paper inscribed with ancient inscriptions. After a freak accident, involving the sons of The Magician transporting this sarcophagus, Katie is found eight years older and in a catatonic state.

If there is one thing that Lee Cronin can be commended for in his version of The Mummy it is establishing geography, space and the familial fallout that comes with the loss of Katie. The film religiously cuts between immense vast wides and oppressive close-ups, all of which are pleasantly composed and framed. Yet Cronin cannot help himself but boycott his own formal sensibilities by endless split dioptic De Palma-esque reverences and a mishmash of egregiously utilised genre tropes. Just as you think Cronin’s vision is coming to light, or that he hints at being political or transgressive, he derails it with another reference to another classic horror film. At one point Katie is being photographed and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre soundbite finds itself within the sound mix — a classic Cronin-trope. There is such an absence of Lee Cronin in his entire oeuvre that who he is, and what he actually wishes to say is totally absent from any of his works. His previous venture into the Evil Dead franchise is a total bloody mess and The Hole in the Ground is severely boring. There is absolutely no need to call this Lee Cronin’s The Mummy other than to detract itself from the other Mummy films. The marketing around Lee Cronin’s The Mummy has constantly stated “BRENDAN FRASER IS NOT IN LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY” kind of summing up its distinct lack of individualism and arguably its necessity.

Once its all kicks off by the end of the films arduous second act, Cronin disperses between practical and CG-heavy effects that are just like anything you’ve ever seen. As previously mentioned, there are the occasional formal flourishes, once including an extreme close-up body-rig shot as someone falls down the stairs, but it is entirely few and far between. Detective Zaki’s narrative arc is easily the film’s highlight as well as its fatherly sentiment by the end, but it is just all such an onerous task — ending up in such a deeply missed opportunity to be something special.