From the sands of Cairo emerges a long-missing girl. Her body has been marred by the ancient malevolence stored within her. Katie didn’t come back.

Eight years after the disappearance of their daughter Katie, Charlie and Larissa Canon receive a call saying she has been found. Once they bring her home, it becomes obvious that Katie isn’t herself anymore. She’s become a vessel for something else.

Director Lee Cronin’s newest take on the classic Universal Pictures monster movie attempted to give the whole series a shot of life. The result was a movie that succeeded on a technical level, but failed to create an engaging story.

While the gore and cinematography impressed, little else stood out in this bizarre revival of the series.

“The Mummy” franchise began in 1932, and, since then, it’s spawned a diverse range of movies. Of all the Universal monster movie franchises, it’s the most malleable. Few films in the franchise have much in common.

Perhaps the most popular film in the series is Stephen Sommers’s 1999 blockbuster “The Mummy.” Sommers resurrected the franchise after it lay dormant for almost 30 years. The series returned from the grave as a summer blockbuster similar to “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

Sommers’s take on “The Mummy” defined the franchise for years to come. Even with an attempted reboot of the franchise starring Tom Cruise in 2017, nothing in the franchise has escaped the popularity of the 1999 entry. Not even “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.”

With producers Jason Blum and James Wan behind him, Cronin sought to make a completely new take on “The Mummy.”

This movie is completely different from any Mummy movie before it, which is both its biggest strength and weakness.

There’s something so mean about “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” that really encapsulated its identity. It’s not afraid to make you uncomfortable or put you on edge, which is its greatest asset. Those moments, which become more frequent in the film’s last hour, are what made the movie worth watching.

All those great moments are wrapped up in a mind-numbingly dull script. Though I wouldn’t call the movie itself boring, it spent a significant amount of its runtime trudging through tired plot points with undeveloped characters.

Charlie and Larissa are played to a mediocre effect by Jack Reynor and Laia Costa. Reynor’s performance feels particularly amateurish, which is strange considering that he played a major role in “Midsommar.”

I’m not sure who the blame falls on. I can’t tell whether it was a result of Cronin’s poor direction or something with Reynor, but I lean towards an issue with Reynor. He delivers the film’s weakest performance.

Katie, as played by Natalie Grace, is pretty terrifying. Though some lines ruined her best moments, the performance was pretty spot on.

My personal favorite character, and the ultimate underutilized aspect of the movie, is Detective Dalia Zaki as portrayed by May Calamawy. The movie’s only major Egyptian character is shoved out of the narrative despite having the most interesting part of the movie.

Watching the detective slowly unravel the mystery of Katie’s disappearance was far more engaging than what the movie’s A-plot has to offer. This demonstrated another huge issue with the film: it should have taken place in Egypt.

After Katie’s body is discovered, the doctors recommend sending her back to America to be with her family, which is just a truly unbelievable part of the movie. As soon as this girl, who has been missing for eight years, shows back up, they cannot wait to get her out of the country. It’s just insane.

Katie was mummified inside a coffin for eight years, and her skin is the texture of a leather handbag; she is in no condition to be on an airplane. It completely ignores the police’s investigation of her disappearance.

Suspension of disbelief is an essential part of watching a movie. Most films require the audience to dismiss some level of doubt because movies aren’t real life, they’re stories. However, a film shouldn’t rely on the audience to disregard any question of reality. Cronin is already asking me to believe that a child is possessed by the malevolent spirit of an ancient Egyptian being; you can’t ask me to ignore my common sense as well. It breaks the immersion that is so important to keep your audience bought into the movie.

Despite everything wrong about the idea of sending Katie back to America, they do it anyway. From there on, the bulk of “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” takes place in the magical city of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

After an unfortunately slow first half, the film kicks it into gear once Katie gets back home.

The performances from child actors Billie Roy and Shylo Molina as Katie’s younger siblings, Maud and Sebastián, are great. Along with Grace, they save the acting in the film’s second half. Reynor’s performance looks particularly weak when two child actors run circles around him.

Grace really stole the show. Katie was the film’s driving force, but it doesn’t feel like Cronin knew that.

Katie’s presence looms over the film, but Katie herself feels underutilized. Her key moments are overshadowed by some of the film’s worst lines.

“Don’t worry Grandma, it’s fun to be dead,” was a featured line in the trailers for the movie. It’s a cringeworthy line on its own, but it was even worse in the movie itself.

While the film’s mean-spirited tone is vital to its success, lines with the caliber of “it’s fun to be dead” make it impossible to take it seriously in key moments.

Nearly every important scene killed its own tension by trying too hard to be edgy. What made this so frustrating was that those scenes don’t need lines to make them feel scary or mean. The gore, cinematography and sound design speak for themselves.

There’s one scene that is luckily unmarred by annoying dialogue. It is one of the most unflinchingly cruel scenes I’ve seen in a modern movie, and it saves “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” from falling into a tier of truly uninteresting and boring horror films.

Despite that, there’s something admirable about the movie’s aspirations. Cronin’s approach to the film was unique enough that I respect what he’s trying to do.

The film’s peaks were high, but it was weighed down by sparing moments of cringeworthy dialogue and unfortunately generic characters. Perhaps we shouldn’t have taken “The Mummy” franchise to Albuquerque.