Opening scene mayhem introduces a formidable beast, a serpent with spiritual vengefulness. It can petrify victims to stone in Medusan fashion, and it can swat you like a fly too. Odd that it has Greek Mythological power, since it's lurking in the Mid-East desert. Treasure hunters and a full moon unleash the giant serpent to emerge and wreak more destruction.
Promising start, but after that initial scene, this film decides it's a junior high school production, and degenerates into unbridled silliness. When the creature is unleashed, does it utilize its horrifying powers for a grandiose or symbolic attack? Like other monsters would? No, it just tears up a museum and a shopping mall. It also wipes out a bunch of "soldiers" who look like they trained for combat by playing war games with GI Joe dolls.
The acting is painfully bad. Somebody recites a line loudly, and then pauses expectantly, as if waiting for a laugh track to be inserted. It reminded me of one of those tween sit-coms on Disney channel. The archaeologist guy (a Robert Downey look-like) wanders around with a pie-eyed gaping expression. He makes dumb quips, and he just looks weird. There's a stock nerdy geek, who has neon-yellow bleached hair and horn-rimmed glasses. The female love interest looks like she's going to laugh hysterically at any moment.
The red-dress greedy rich femme-fatale wannabe girl deserves special recognition. Her tough vamp routine looks more like a shampoo commercial. She runs around with a big heavy gold staff, looking like she's going to trip over her stiletto heels any moment. One guess on how shampoo vamp ends up. And it'll seem way over due.
About as scary as a Care Bears cartoon. For its unintentional humor, it's good for a couple of laughs.
