mom’s opinion

The time has probably come for animation filmmakers, looking for themes to captivate children, to turn to ancient Egypt and offer us a film about mummies. Whether we should welcome this twist is another matter, because while director Juan Jesús García Galocha has a promising idea, he does little to make it happen.

The setting is mostly the underworld of mummies, where the ancient Egyptians went about their business, with only a few extra bandages. Our heroes are former charioteer Thut (Joe Thomas) and Princess Nefer (Eleanor Tomlinson), who are under pressure to wed for some reason, though dynastic succession probably isn’t an issue for the dead. When her engagement ring is stolen by an evil treasure hunter (Hugh Bonneville), Thut sets off with her younger brother Sekhem (Santiago Winder) and their adorable pet crocodile to retrieve it and join Nefer. On the surface, they defy the constraints of their location and history, wondering if they should go home.

It’s a colorful film with some nice design touches to keep kids interested, but it feels silly as an adult, rooted more in Egyptology films than Egypt itself. There are nods to prince of egyptFor The fifth element and even, Ra help us, a star gate. Aside from a bit with a boomerang (authentically Egyptian), it’s all awfully familiar and cute at first base, and isn’t it great to have a predominantly white British cast voicing all Egyptians.

More fatally, it’s not as fun as it should be. The mummies’ narrative with the modern world boils down to a shopping spree and an exchange of identities in a production of Aida. There’s little real sense of culture shock or discovery, and nothing terribly original about her characters’ journeys. She’s just another repressed princess looking for freedom and another (sort of) neglected young man who needs to grow up. Two funny lines — the bad boy being a mama’s boy and Sean Bean cast as someone long dead — aren’t enough to lift a usually underwhelming mix.