It definitely has a lot of flaws and it can feel like a generic Hollywood blockbuster at times, but it's fairly competent and has some good action. It has two major problems right up front: 1) this is supposed to be the start of Universal's new "Dark Universe" shared universe, dredging up its classic monsters for the studio's version of Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe. This doesn't exactly sound like a good idea, especially with these being action movies and not horror flicks. 2) Tom Cruise stars, Tom Cruise has creative control and he wants it to be another Tom Cruise movie. Tom Cruise! Just had to say it once more to satisfy Tom Cruise's ego. This is also just a bad way to start a new franchise, especially one in which Tom Cruise is probably not going to pop up in every future installment. "Tom Cruise movie" is just not the way to go with the initial film in your franchise. So, yeah, this film definitely has elements at odds with each other. It still kind of works, in my opinion. Tom Cruise is certainly getting past his sell-by date and I think another star may have worked better, but he's not bad and he can still do action stuff, like the thrilling plane crash showed prominently in the trailers and the many, many chase sequences. The monsters are pretty decent, too. Nothing you haven't seen before, but pretty cool, jerky undead monsters. And Sofia Boutella is quite good as the main villain. Jake Johnson is also kind of fun as Cruise's sidekick, often used for comic relief. As a huge fan of Johnson from New Girl, I love seeing him in these movies even if he doesn't belong. Russell Crowe is also very good as, well, it's easy enough to see on the IMDb page but let's just say he's the major expansion of the Dark Universe in this film. Annabelle Wallis isn't bad as the lead actress, but she doesn't have all that much to do. My major gripes with the film are its clunky opening exposition and especially the way it ends, which is just kind of confusing. Obviously it was going to end going towards a sequel / the expanded universe, but I could have used a bit more info here. Very low expectations paid off well for me, and I certainly wouldn't unabashedly recommend it, but I definitely had fun.
