The Curse of King Tut's Tomb

One of the most fascinating things about this film (apart from Jonathan Hyde's extraordinary resemblance with Henry Daniell)is watching how the plot meanders and wanders with no destination in sight as if it were an Art Nouveau filigrain.

I suspect that the archeology academics would seriously object at the unorthodox -but revolutionary- system that the protagonist and his buddies use to find the legendary Pharaoh's tomb, namely, by sitting in the terraces of Cairo's seediest bars and leaving them without alcoholic stock. Their interest is, however, scientific, except for the legionnaire buddy who is more interested in gold statuettes accidentally getting lost in his greatcoat pockets (Having mentioned the legionnaire, I must say that I admire the courage of the scriptwriter, who reveals to us -for the very first time- that Egypt was at the time a French protectorate, and not, as we've been led to believe by the official history, associated to the British empire)

The bad guys stick to the old, slow, boring system of studying the terrain and excavating carefully according to old Ieroglyphs, while our hero and his friends discover the tomb the legendary grave by happily throwing dynamite sticks at random: a new path is opened thus for archeology.

The film starts thousands years ago,under sands of ancient Egypt. The pharaoh Tutankamen rules, few know the events about his life.Tuthankamen really was son from King Amenophis IV and Qeen Nefertiti and he died violently.In the movie he appears fighting evil forces. The king was buried and his tomb eternally curses so that no man would ever again suffer from his evil ways. But thousands years later on a greedy search of Tut's treasure a group of archaeologist break the curse seal the tomb. A crakerjack adventurer(Casper Van Dien,Space troopers)is an adventurer wishes to find King Tut's tablet that would rule the world. But his nemesis Sinclair(Jonathan Hyde,Titanic) along with a secret society(Malcolm McDowell,Clockwork orange and Simon Callow,Room with a view)also want it and will stop at nothing to obtain it. Fremont is helped by a beautiful archaeologist(Leonor Varela,Cleopatra) and a trio friends(Steve Waddington,The last Mohican,among others). They venture into Valley of the Kings where find the Tut's tomb and the curse come out and once again unleashes the savage power.

This TV picture is a crossover of Egyptian fantasy:¨Mummy,King Scorpion¨(Stephen Sommers) and adventures and clothes from¨Indiana Jones¨(Spielberg). This is a cheesy fun in the Saturday matinée tradition with excessive and mediocre special effects. The movie contains lots of mummies, skeletons, wizards, as well as spooky tombs. The motion picture is regularly directed by Russell Mulcahy(Razorback,Highlander,Resurrection)who made a similar story about Egyptian curse titled¨Tale of mummy¨. Rating : Average but with some moment entertaining.

With all the finesse and depth of an after-school movie, we are treated to an Indiana Jones knock-off.

Long before the Egyptian dynasties, the world was in a struggle between good and evil. A jade plaque that when assembled lets them their evil critters in from another world.

Archeologist/teacher Danny Freemont (Casper Van Dien) is in the process of finding the plaque quadrants from the far corners of the earth.

Morgan Sinclair (Jonathan Hyde) competing archeologist/teacher and member of that popular cabal "Hell Fire" is in the process of pilfering jade plaque pieces from never learning and unsuspecting Danny Freemont.

Now here comes the Hallmark part. Danny loves Dr. Azelia Barakat (Leonor Varela), who loves Government Official Yunan Heikal (Parvin Dabas) who is in love with Egypt. Will anyone get together?

Will the bad guys finally win or is this just another save the world at the last minute movie?

This is supposed to be Egypt however, it is filmed in India. Strangely, enough all the Egyptians look Indian.

This animal even looks fuzzy in Blu-ray.

It's sad to see. Really. With Russell Mulcahy being the director of Highlander - a must see of my 80's teenage - I thought maybe it was a return to form when I caught a trailer on Sky. I duly tuned in...

That was the start of my troubles. This lack lustre schizophrenic wannabe Indiana Jones clone lacked any sense of pace, character or credibility, and that's leaving the dubious special effects alone. My woes were doubled when I found that at the end of transmission I had only seen the first half of this two part torture.

Through some freak happenstance I collided with part two a week or so later. I accepted the wafer thin plot, the unlikely OTT villains, the stereotypes, the surface characterisations, and even the Very "Special" Special Effects. And from somewhere came the impetus to want the film to be finished. It went into free-fall and became a demon laden action type thingy effort, sort of... You see, it just ended and I thought "There is a God". All I wanted was to see it finished. And mercifully I did.

Please Russell Mulcahy, I beg you, read the script before you say yes to your next film! The Lost Battalion wasn't bad at all! As far as viewers are concerned though - save yourself a couple of hours of your life, because this film is certainly Cursed!

The happenings depicted in The Curse Of King Tut's Tomb somehow didn't make it into the history books. If you're looking for the story of how Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter found the tomb than you'll be disappointed.

Instead we find Casper Van Dien doing a pale imitation of Indiana Jones as archaeologist, right down to the fedora. Van Dien knows he's in a Thanksgiving special and he overacts accordingly.

That of course is nothing compared to what Jonathan Hyde does as the master villain of the film. Hyde runs the gamut of villainy from Snidely Whiplash to Darth Vader with a lot else thrown in. Hyde in his villainy is backed by the Hellfire Club headed by Malcolm McDowell. But Hyde's ambitions extend far beyond just ruling this world. Tut's tomb is a passageway to the demon world and Hyde's working with them.

A lot of talented people get wasted in this Hallmark TV movie which is downright mediocre. And the end switches from Indiana Jones to Stargate.

As for Carnarvon and Carter that's covered too, but you'll have to sit through almost three hours to find out.