I’m sorry but I don’t regard Sofia Boutella‘s demonic mummy demon (i.e., a resuscitation of Ahmanet, an Egyptian princess from 5000 years ago) as any kind of scary. One, Boutella’s casting as the mummy was a political sop to notions of gender equality in the film industry. And two, I saw her up close at Cinemacon in Las Vegas and she’s no Charlize Theron (who I would buy as a mummy monster in a New York minute) — Boutella is delicate and modest-sized. I don’t get the threat.

You can say “in a CG spectacle the physical size or gender of the villain doesn’t matter…it’s all in the dark conjurings and wild effects” and I would reply “no, you’re wrong…the performer has to put some kind of chill into your system…you have to accept the idea that the actor or actress villain is harboring some kind of real-deal malevolence or madness on their own dime…you can’t just trot out some attractive French-Algerian actress who’s slender and only 5’5″ tall and say ‘okay, audiences…here’s somebody you should definitely be scared of.'”

Alex Kurtzman and Tom Cruise‘s The Mummy pops on June 9th.