Tom Cruise's new film The Mummy slammed as a 'monster fail'

It's supposed to be the film that launches a brand new franchise - but The Mummy has been slammed by critics as "drab," "nonsensical" and a "monster fail".

The blockbuster action adventure, a reboot of a trilogy of films starring Brendon Fraser in the 2000s, hits cinemas today.

Review embargoes lifted overnight, with many critics revealing Alex Kurtzman's take on The Mummy to be a bit of a dud.

On Rotten Tomates, it has a 26 per cent approval rating. On Metacritic, it's 38 per cent.

"Sure it's got big, blurry action scenes, a plane crash, and an army of dusty, mindless zombies," wrote New York Daily News reviewer Stephen Whitty. "But I think some of them may have been the screenwriters, because the movie's practically lifeless."

Chicago Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper was even more harsh: "The Mummy is so wall-to-wall awful, so cheesy, so ridiculous, so convoluted, so uninvolving and so, so stupid," he wrote.

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw quipped that it "needed to be bandaged more tightly".

And in a one-star review, Peter Travers from Rolling Stone called it a "monster fail".

"How meh is The Mummy? Let me count the ways. For all the huffing and puffing and digital desperation from overworked computers, this reboot lands onscreen with a resounding thud," he wrote.

"Tom Cruise should have played the Mummy - that way his face would be swathed in bandages and his fans wouldn't have to see him sweat so hard to get this lumbering loser off the ground."

But reviews weren't all bad.

Entertainment Weekly's Chris Nashawaty said it could launch the franchise the studio was dreaming of.

"I'm not sure that this aimless, lukewarm take on The Mummy is how the studio dreamed that its Dark Universe would begin. But it's just good enough to keep you curious about what comes next."

Tampa Bay Times writer Steve Persall called it a "serviceable popcorn flick".

"While The Mummy isn't the big bang preferred to start the Dark Universe of classic monsters, it's a serviceable popcorn flick dangling hints of promising things to come."

The Mummy hits New Zealand theatres today.