La Momie

Le film possède un esprit mystérieux agréable, dont le créateur est principalement Boris Karloff avec son visage, son maquillage et sa gestuelle hypnotique lente. Même le sujet, monté avec un motif amoureux distinct dans l'esprit de "Dracula" de Stoker, est plus que bien. Mais le scénario est quand même un peu simple et pauvre en rebondissements et moments dramatiques. Même avec la connaissance des blockbusters numériques prétentieux et insipides de Stephen Sommers, cela devient une véritable purification narrative... (03/01/2006)

En 1932, le film américain intitulé « La Momie »a suggéré que la momie pourrait être un autre excellent monstre de la société Universal, mais les suites ont montré que ce ne sera pas le cas, que ce personnage ne fonctionne tout simplement pas, surtout car un seul thème a été constamment recyclé. Cependant, le film original reste excellent même après de nombreuses années, fonctionne bien et n’a pas grand-chose à reprocher. Boris Karloff y montre pleinement ses talents d’acteur. (20/08/2019)

The Mummy is one of those films in which it can be very easy to point out all sorts of mistakes... But only if the viewer wants to. If he doesn't want to, just give him a story sort of copied from Dracula, the demonic looks of Boris Karloff, a nice studio design and now and then still impressive suspense, and very enjoyable entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less. (20/06/2017)

The age of classic horror movies from Universal, Egyptian mythology and Boris Karloff. I have a weak spot for all of these, but in spite of it I didn’t feel as enthralled as I would have liked to. The screenplay is a bit bizarre though, while being pretty good in fact. What doesn’t work is Freund’s directing. He had a great cast to his disposal, an interesting topic and, at the time, a decent budget and the possibility to shoot in places where other filmmakers don’t stand a chance of entering. In spite all of this, he didn’t manage to bring the Mummy to life and, in contrast to the rest of the contemporary production of Universal, one must look at this in the perspective of its era. And that is no good. No good at all. (29/03/2008)

The first half is better than the second. Boris Karloff's entrance is exquisite. He was an extremely charismatic guy, and the filmmakers knew that, that's why the close-up of his face – the same one – is repeated several times, even with those glittering sinister eyes; it’s beautiful to watch (I had to save that evil look as a wallpaper on my PC :o) The second half is terribly rushed, as if the filmmakers were trying to cram it into the shortest possible runtime. One of the main characters dies, but nothing comes of it, no one seems to care much. Things happen too fast and Edward Van Sloan plays Dr. Muller awfully. I love old movies a lot and that's the only reason I don’t give them a hard time. The whole thing is pretty naive, next to the likes of Frankenstein it doesn't really hold up in comparison. On the other hand, the long silent flashback is impressive, and there's Karloff, he keeps it afloat, a stud, a true icon. (12/02/2019)