Prisoners of the Sun

Prisoners Of The Sun has Professor John Rhys-Davies astronomer organizing an expedition to Egypt to view from the pyramids or one specific pyramid a celestial event that only takes place every 5000 years or so. A perfect alignment of some stars. Since they're going in the tomb itself or will attempt same he's needing an archaeologist. The one he has in mind is Joss Ackland.

But Ackland suffers a heart attack and he sends his young assistant David Charvet in his place. Reluctantly the rest agree to have him along.

Others in this merry band are Gulshan Grower,, Michael Higgs, Nick Moran, and Mohamed Akszham and one of them killed for the privilege of going along.

Prisoners Of The Sun borrows from several other sources including Indiana Jones and all the mummy films you can name going back to Boris Karloff. Any cliche you can think of is there.

John Rhys-Davies must have been in competition for an award in overacting because he trundles and bellows his way through most of the scenes. He makes this whatever else it is, not dull.

Still it's one lame movie for Mummies.

Take a healthy dollop of Indiana Jones, a substantial amount of Aliens and Predators and some sprinkling of The Mummy - no, not any of the remakes! The original! I take it that John Rhys-Davies and Joss Ackland are short of cash in their dotage...

This pretends to be a mix of old time adventure and some meager sci-fi and it fails.

Acting is OK. There are no more damsels in distress than what is usual today - meaning none. Gender equality-wise, that's good! Women are quite capable by themselves and they really don't need men with hair on their chests to rescue them from anything.

There's no sex and no nudity - tends to get sort of awkward. Comforting! That means we're "down to some serious action". Ahem... Well...

The plot starts out OK, promising actually, but this production doesn't take off and doesn't deliver. It may be comforting to see old faces amongst all the new ones but wrinkles doesn't cut it.

There's neither hero nor heroine in this concoction.

The CGI is good, but with the software available today, who'd flunk it?

See it if you have to. But you don't, do you? No really!

Decided to watch this on a bored Saturday thinking maybe it'll be a bit like The Mummy, how wrong I was. The editing was amateur, the characters were just unappealing & the acting was either over the top or absent. The use of cheap CGI didn't do it any credit & the "Mummy", well I've been more scared by my cats jumping on my bed while I'm sleeping.

The only appealing thing that got my attention was the "historical" storyline involving Egypt & Osiris which should really have been expanded on & possibly used to great effect. I've given the film 2 out of 10 because of this, but I would advise you to avoid watching as you really won't be missing anything.

A multinational expedition discovers a lost city beneath a pyramid, where they must stop the reawakened gods of ancient Egypt from initiating the apocalypse.

Despite a good cast, decent writers and all that, this is nothing special. I am not sure if it was a made-for-SyFy film, but that is exactly how it comes across. There is an interesting idea (however misguided) about Osiris actually being the Osiri people... I like that, even if it ignores how Egyptian is translated into English...

But overall, this is rather blah and not really worth a viewing, or at least not a second viewing. Could have spent my time better.

In Egypt, Prof. Hayden Masterton (John Rhys-Davies) organizes an expedition to a pyramid to witness an event that takes place only once every 5000 years. But he needs to buy a key from a local dealer that will awaken aliens from outer space that are hidden inside the pyramid. However the treasure hunter Peter Levitz (Michael Higgs) kills the dealer with Masterton's walking stick and steals the key; then he blackmails Masterton to participate in the expedition. When the team breaks in the pyramid, they find deadly traps and only a few will survive and Masterton uses the blood of his own daughter to activate a system to awaken the aliens. Will Earth be doomed to an apocalypse?

"Prisoners of the Sun" is a movie of action, adventure and horror with a lame and messy unoriginal story. It is funny to see Prof. Hayden Masterton preparing an expedition where a key is necessary but he will only buy it in the last minute. The plot and unpleasant characters are near ridiculous but the acting is reasonable despite the histrionic John Rhys-Davies performing the lead role. The special effects are decent but the disappointing conclusion is awful and this film deserves the IMDb User Rating. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "O Despertar dos Deuses" ("The Awakening of the Gods")