Entertainment : The Mummy comes to The Palace

Eighteen years after Tom Cruise turned down the title role in 1999's TheMummy, he's starring in Universal Pictures' Dark Universe rendition of the film. The Mummy plays the Palace Friday, June 30 through Thursday, July6 at 7 pm, and Monday, July 3 at 2 pm. Sofia Boutella plays the titlecharacter, an undead form of the Egyptian princess Ahmanet. She was first in line to succeed her father Pharaoh Menehptre only to bestripped of her birthright when his second wife gave birth to a son. Determined to claim the throne for herself, Ahmanet sold her soul tothe Egyptian god Set, who gave her a special dagger to transfer hisspirit into a different body. After murdering her family, Ahmanet attempted to sacrifice her lover to give Set physical form, but herfather's priests killed him and mummified Ahmanet, sentencing her tobe buried alive for eternity inside a sarcophagus surrounded bymercury so that her monstrous form will not escape the tomb. In present day Iraq, the soldier Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and hisfriend Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) accidentally stumble across the tomb. They invitearchaeologist Jenny Hasley (Annabelle Wallis) to check out the tomb, and she confirms thatit is no ordinary tomb, but a prison. The group pulls the sarcophagus out of the tomb andprepare it to be transported by plane to England. During the flight, Chris Vail is possessedby Ahmanet's power, causing him to attack the rest of the passengers. No one survives theensuing fight except Jenny, who is thrown off the plane with a parachute by Nick. Nick wakes up in a morgue in England, where he learns that Ahmanet plans to use his body as a vessel for Set. Nick must fight against the possession and powers of Ahmanet, or shewill wreak havoc over the modern world and spread the evil she's been holding forcenturies. The Mummy has done well at most box offices, and claims the highest grossing globalopening of any Tom Cruise film to date. The next Universal Pictures Dark Universe film withbe Bride of Frankenstein, set to release in 2019. The Mummy will be shown in 3D and has an MPAA rating of PG-13 for violence, action and scary images, and for some suggestive content and partial nudity. Steve Persall from the Times Movie Critic said, "The Mummy offers several such treatsincluding a visual nod to Fraser's 1999 version and its then-state-of-art sand stormdemon. We see a claw from The Creature From the Black Lagoon, a skull that couldbe Dracula's and a key character who could be the corpse pal in An American Werewolf inLondon reincarnated." WHAT DID SHE SAY? Thank you to the many Palace patrons who have already joined the ranks of our sustaining membership and donated to our 2017 campaign for a soundupgrade. We are currently halfway toward our goal of raising $24,000 for anew and improved sound system for both movies and stage shows, to includea hearing assistance component. Checks may be made out to ACT I Capital Fund, or go to www.vintonpalace.org to donate online.