The Worst Mummy Movie Of All Time, According To IMDB
The story of "The Mummy" has captivated movie fans for nearly a century. It was first thrust into the spotlight by Universal Pictures during its "Classic Monsters" era in the early 1930s. Then, it was catapulted into today's mainstream with 1999's "The Mummy" featuring Brendan Fraser as well other talented cast members. Several sequels were made after the franchise was rebooted in '99, but most fans would like to forget about those.
"The Mummy Returns" was able to rake in the most cash out of all the films following the immense success of Fraser's first outing, but it wasn't as critically successful as "The Mummy." Then came "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor," which was said to have single-handedly caused the decline of Fraser's career in Hollywood at the time. The movie was widely panned. A decade later, Universal decided to try another reboot — this time starring box office heavyweight Tom Cruise. But not even he could break the critics' curse that had become of the "Mummy" franchise.
Many people considered the last movie with Cruise to be the worst in the entire series. But what do the IMDB ratings say?
Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is as bad as it gets
While the 2017 "Mummy" has seen its fair share of criticism — and was once the lowest-rated mummy movie on IMDB — it's not currently at the bottom of the IMDB totem pole. That spot now belongs to "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor." But the difference between the two is very small.
Tom Cruise's "The Mummy," as of Wednesday September 15, was sitting with a 5.4 IMDB rating. "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" has a 5.2. The original film, "The Mummy" (1932), has the highest rating in the franchise at 7.1, while Fraser's remake is the second highest at 7.0. Now there are several "Mummy" spin-offs and direct-to-DVD movies that have lower scores, but for this list, only films that were released in theaters were considered. The 2002 spin-off "The Scorpion King" rounds out the bottom three with a 5.5 IMDB rating. The movie is famous for helping launch the acting career of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, but that doesn't mean that fans particularly enjoyed it.
The 2017 "Mummy" was bashed for using bad CGI and a convoluted storyline, which was also the basis of criticism surrounding "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor." Brendan Fraser has gone on record saying "Dragon Emperor" wore him down as an actor and led to him not getting any more leading roles. Both it and "The Mummy" (2017) were left off HBO Max when the franchise was brought to the app earlier this year.