We’re getting on the hype train with more Funko exclusives at this year’s San Diego Comic Con. Well, SDCC adjacent, we should say. Following up on the success from last year, Funko will be hosting another Pop-Up Shop at this year’s SDCC. According to Funko, it will be held at 448 West Market Street in the Marina District. Though the shop will be open for all four days of Comic Con, it will only have hours of 10 AM until 3 PM and, knowing Funko, will likely be a madhouse.
So if you’re not able to get into Funko’s booth at SDCC, at least you have the opportunity to purchase something from them.
Second Reveal
– June 29
San Diego Comic Con is just about a month away and there’s a ton of stuff that we’re excited to see come out of the show, like the big announcements from all of the major movie and TV studios and comic book big (and little) shots. However, one of the major draws to the West Coast mecca for geek culture is the exclusive toys that are available at the show.
Over the last couple of weeks, Funko, the purveyor of fine Pop! vinyls, has announced their lineup of SDCC exclusive figures. We have compiled everything right here for you so you can decide before you go which ones you can’t live without (or salivate over the exclusives you’ll need to hunt down on eBay if you can’t make it to San Diego).
With the head start of the relaunch of The Secret World into the new Free-to-Play Secret World Legends happening on Friday, June 23rd, and the official launch of Secret World Legends happening on the 26th, there isn’t much time left. Anticipation levels are running quite high as Funcom has been relatively tight lipped for the past couple months on complete details on the new game, including keeping beta testers under NDA up until launch and eschewing an open beta entirely. Still, in true Secret World fashion, a new ARG has come into play as a lead into Secret World Legends’ launch entitled “Kiss of the Revenant”.
If you’ve never played The Secret World then let me be the first to tell you about the game’s famed ‘investigation missions’. They are on a complete other level of devious. You think you’ve encountered tricky puzzles in other games, have you? Have those puzzles needed you to translate Morse Code from flashing headlights, research passages in the Vulgate Bible, or brush up on your Romanian? Didn’t think so. Solving these puzzles is a complete head rush, and the sense of accomplishment is like no other. Sure, you could just look up the answers, but you’d be shorting yourself of one of the best experiences in gaming today.
With that sort of history to live up to, this lead up has to be smart. To that effect, Funcom had the makers of one of the game’s previous tie-in ARGs, Alice & Smith of The Black Watchmen fame, set to work creating a new ARG to celebrate the release. According to a June 16th press release from Funcom, Kiss of the Revenant will have participants “Focusing on the solving of intricate puzzles and mysteries” where an “unsettling storyteller invites players to take a second look at a tragic love story on the Savage Coast”, the second zone of the game, which is also the location of The Secret World spin-off The Park. “Players will be challenged to decipher and perform a ritual that crafts an exclusive set of weapons for use in ‘Secret World Legends’.”
The ARG is currently up and running with participants helping to unlock milestones to release further content as the game progresses. It will run up to the launch of Secret World Legends on June 26th, 2017, and is free to participate. Just head to www.KissoftheRevenant.com to join. Also, be sure to check out the relaunch of Secret World Legends, starting Monday, June 26th, 2017. Details can be found at www.SecretWorldLegends.com. I know I’ll be checking it out and streaming it often as it has been hands-down my favorite MMO to date, and I can’t wait to see where the story will finally lead, to Tokyo and beyond.
Sidenote: Come check out the premier Secret World podcast Beyond the Veil’s live broadcast this Thursday, June 22nd, on Twitch. The show’s hosts, including myself, will be interviewing Andrea Doyon from Alice & Smith as well as Romain Amiel, Game Director of The Secret World and Secret World Legends.
When Iron Man debuted in theaters in 2008, audiences had no idea that it would completely change the landscape of film-making forever. It marked the birth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU became a collection of movies featuring different characters all tied together as a way to multiply audience interest and profits for otherwise uninteresting movies. While Marvel pioneered the scheme, other studios quickly jumped on board, notably Marvel’s main competitor, DC Comics. Universal Pictures recently decided to dust off their “Monsters” properties and build their own Cinematic Universe. The Mummy marks the first film in what they’ve christened “Dark Universe.” But the question remains; is The Mummy worthwhile?
From the very start, Universal wanted to make sure audiences were aware that The Mummy is part of a larger framework. With press releases and announcements of Johnny Depp playing the Invisible Man, this felt unnecessary. The studio has even inserted a logo variation that morphs the famous “Universal Pictures” vanity logo into the words “Dark Universe,” almost like a new entity that produced the movie. It’s an odd addition, one done out of hubris more than anything else, and it’s completely ridiculous. It would be as if Iron Man began with a logo touting it as “A Marvel Cinematic Film.”
The film itself opens in an equally bizarre way: on the burial of a Templar Knight in twelfth century England. It then quickly transitions to modern-day London before flashing back to Egypt and summarizing the history of Ahmanet and her quest for power, all told through a narration by Russell Crowe’s character. Why any of this was necessary I can’t say. The only thing I can think of is that the film’s writers, of which there are six, had no faith that audiences would have been able to understand the hook without having it spelled out. That theory also explains the immense amount of verbal exposition we get along the way. For a film that’s as steeped in lore as The Mummy, I would expect an excess of expository dialogue, but Universal really took advantage of my expectations.
Most of the film gets bogged down from how hard it is to like Tom Cruise’s character. Nick…Something Or Other is an Army Sergeant/thief who has his sights set on “liberating” whatever valuables he happens to find in modern-day Iraq. He makes no excuses for his deception and his main motivation throughout the film is saving himself. There’s a slight glimmer of goodness in his character, which is dashed as quickly as it appears by way of a sad attempt at levity. I doubt the writers even realized that their throw-away joke negated any positive quality in the character, because if they did, they should have worked harder to make him more likeable.
The dislike of Cruise’s character is compounded by how terribly the writers treat his female counterpart. Nick takes advantage of archeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) by lying to her, sleeping with her, and stealing her map to the location of what he believe is “treasure,” but not once does he show remorse for his actions. However, when he later discovers her secret that she’s been working with a covert team of “archeologists,” she’s made to feel terrible for her actions and apologizes profusely. Even watching this through the eyes of a dude, I could see the incongruity plain as day.
As expected, the movie makes a number of humorous attempts through its big, loud action sequence but most of them are so trite and obvious that they fall flat. Not to mention that some of the biggest jokes happen at the most inopportune moment, which made it uncomfortable to even enjoy them.
The humor was another pratfall the movie continued to make. Many of the jokes happen with unfortunate timing, such as when danger was at its highest. This created a strange juxtaposition that felt awkward. Am I supposed to laugh as Tom Cruise is about to get a dagger plunged into his heart? According to the writers, yes, I am.
I can’t say that the film is entirely bad, though. It does a few things right, most notably the casting of Sofia Boutella as the titular Mummy. Boutella has an amazing onscreen presence. The way she plays Ahmanet is threatening, unrelenting, and imposing, but she also manages to ply sympathy when needed. The only downside is how much her talent is wasted on a one-note villain. Granted, Ahmanet has more depth than both Cruise’s and Wallis’s characters, but her antagonism just comes off as boring. She’s the ultimate unstoppable evil that can be easily stopped by a MacGuffin.
Then you have Russell Crowe, whose appearance in this film is solely to expand the Dark Universe. Crowe plays Dr. Henry Jekyll. Yep, that Dr. Jekyll. He was a joy to watch as he seemed to be the only person in the ensemble who bothered getting into character. While I did like the way the film introduced the Jekyll/Hyde connection, I feel like they overdid it. In a case like this, as most of Marvel’s films have shown, a little goes a long way. Universal, on the other hand, didn’t seem to trust their audience would get the allusion and needed to center an entire action scene on just how badass Mr. Hyde could be. While it was a fun scene, it slowed down the pacing of the film and took some of the spotlight away from the Mummy, who should have always been the focus of the film.
For a movie that’s meant to kickstart a cinematic universe full of classic monsters, The Mummy lacks any sort of horror or thrills. It’s overflowing with cheap jump scares and cringe inducing creepiness (like Cruise being covered in rats), and those grow old fast. It also lacks the charm that 1999’s The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser had. At this point, it must be asked: what is this Mummy flick supposed to bring to the table, besides over-the-top action pieces?
Would I say The Mummy was a good movie? Nope. I will say that as the tent pole of the “Dark Universe,” it was fun, and at the very least, it opened the doors for films featuring a more diverse cast of classic monsters. After years of countless Dracula, Frankenstein and Werewolf movies, we finally have the chance to gets movies centered on the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Invisible Man. In the hands of the right writer and director, these movies have the opportunity to be mind-blowing. While The Mummy is mediocre at best, it deserves some credit.
Grade: C