The mummy's always gotten a bad wrap.

Other monsters were snappy dressers, like Dracula, or educated, like Dr. Frankenstein, or musical, like the Phantom of the Opera, or, um, outdoorsmen like the Wolfman.

The mummy? Some shuffling old stalker, living on herbal tea and searching for the reincarnated Ananka.

Still, Universal -- which first gave us the classic monster with Boris Karloff in 1932 - has already tried to dig the character up once, with the Brendan Fraser adventures. Now they're trying again.

But the whole thing feels cursed.

Or should be.

Obviously, painfully, influenced by Marvel's success, Universal has decided to create its own "Dark Universe" of interconnected stories. The advantage for them? A new franchise with endless tie-ins.

The disadvantage for fans? A lack of most of the qualities that made us love these movies in the first place.

This new version stars Tom Cruise as a cocky graverobber in Iraq, where he uncovers an ancient Egyptian tomb, home to an important but obviously cursed mummy. Why is an ancient Egyptian tomb in Iraq? Good question. But let's move on.

Cruise (who is sort of/kind of in the Army) decides to fly the sarcophagus home, except his military transport crashes in England. Where a mysterious Egyptian talisman has recently turned up in a catacomb full of Crusaders. Wait, why would a pagan object be buried with Christian knights? Another good question.

Please stop asking them.

Because you'll want to save your questions for when an exceedingly well-upholstered Russell Crowe suddenly arrives, playing Dr. Henry Jekyll, of all people, and apparently the head of some secret society that searches the world for fiends to exterminate.

Could they begin by targeting whoever came up with this mess?

Because unlike the old movies that supposedly inspired it, "The Mummy" has no atmosphere, no menace, no romance. And instead falls back on the Marvel Blockbuster Blueprint - motiveless villain, mystical power source, demolished cities and lots of spin-off possibilities.

What is Dr. Jekyll even doing in a mummy movie? Why does Cruise's character have a hey-dude sidekick (who later shows up as a wisecracking corpse, a la "An American Werewolf in London")? And how does the mummy automatically command the allegiance of long-dead Crusaders? Wouldn't Crusaders rise up against a pagan ruler?

But there you go asking questions again.

It's not that a new "The Mummy" has to have a perfectly calibrated story. But it should have a sense of what made the original story appealing. And then find a way to make it new and different - diving deeper into the tale's mythology, or barely veiled eroticism. It has to have its own reason to exist beyond simply raising a tentpole.

Unfortunately director Alex Kurtzman neither has a strong visual sense, nor a hint of how to stage action, nor use actors. "The Mummy" has always been about undying passion. Yet after casting the alluring Sofia Boutella as the ancient Egyptian, he keeps her wrapped up in bandages or prudishly blurred. No eldritch eros here.

But then that's the point, as well as the problem. "The Mummy" isn't really a mummy movie. It's barely a horror movie. What it's really meant to be is the launch of the studio's new marketing megaverse where the monsters are the new superheroes, and spinoffs and sequels can continue into franchised infinity.

And that may be the scariest thing of all.

Ratings note: The film contains violence and sensuality.

'The Mummy' (PG-13) Universal (110 min.) Directed by Alex Kurtzman. With Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Russell Crowe.

ONE AND A HALF STARS

Stephen Whitty may be reached at stephenjwhitty@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @stephenwhitty. Find him on Facebook.

