Riddles of the Sphinx

I couldn't take this movie seriously from very early on in the movie. The CGI department, or whomever was giving them instructions, obviously didn't know what a sphinx looks like and decided to go with a strange looking griffin instead. Even I could tell the difference between the two creatures while I was still in grade school.

The acting was fairly poor. The make-up department should never be hired by anyone ever again. The bald guy looks like his head was shaved the day they stared filming and make-up never even tried to blend the skin tone.

The script was pathetic. I've seen some bad stuff on SciFi and this is one of the worst. The male lead just comes off as corny while the female lead is normally a much better actress. The little girl suffers from the Wesley Crusher syndrome. People don't like this so why do they keep using it as a plot device I will never understand.

The movies that are made for the SyFy network are typically very bad, and usually a lot worse if they happen to be made by Canadian filmmakers. "Riddles of the Sphinx" is a Canadian production, and it's awful in almost every department you can think of. The story doesn't make much sense, for one thing, with the screenplay depending on the regular action sequences to grab the audience's attention. The direction is awful - there are several sequences where key linking footage is missing, leading to a number of "Huh?" moments. The movie is extremely cheap as well, trying to pass off the British Columbian landscape as - get this - Iraq and later Egypt! The only saving grace of the production is the CGI creature, which doesn't look that bad for what was a pitifully low budget. Were these filmmakers even TRYING to make a decent time waster?

The Sci-Fi channel. Despite having some really good original TV series, I always think of the network first and foremost as the "Disaster/Monster B-movie network". Even its documentaries are blatantly science fiction. That may come as a shock to some people, but dude, you CAN'T find a crystal skull with a metal detector...

I only watched this movie because I was bored and I have a more than passing fascination with archaeology. I don't normally watch Sci-Fi Saturday.

Now, as a writer, I understand that ideas are a dime a dozen, but I also know that we've been out of ideas pretty much since we've had the ability to HAVE ideas. That said, I understand the similarities to The Librarian and Indiana Jones, but COME ON! Don't make the hero of this movie dress IDENTICALLY like Jones! That's just taking the similarity too far!

I applaud the idea of a female hero, but don't make her so gung-ho about guns that she admits they're her "security blanket" and continues using them after realizing time and time again the hard way that the monster's completely bulletproof.

I can also understand the need to draw in the young adult demographic, but having the tweenaged girl be a complete genius and outthink the adults in almost every scene smacks of badly written Mary Sue fanfiction, especially if the concerned father seriously makes such a stupid decision as to take the kid into the heart of the war in Iraq(wearing bright pink no less), let alone repeatedly exposing the kid to an invulnerable monster when there's a perfectly good hidden sanctuary where she'd be safe. There's a reason why we have satphones, people.

As for the writing, the movie was so completely predictable, it's hard to come up with a suitable adjective to describe it.

The delectable Dina Meyer and the normally competent Lochlyn Munro co-star in this turkey made for The Sci-Fi Channel, about archaeologists unleashing an unkillable monster from an Egyptian tomb. Meyer looks great in black leather and shooting two guns at a time a la Tomb Raider Lara Croft while Munro simply looks like an idiot in an Indiana Jones hat about two sizes too big for his head. The movie goes nowhere once the monster is unleashed, which happens about five minutes in. At times, the creature looks like a poor man's griffin; at other times, it morphs into a bad copy of Inhotep from the first two THE MUMMY movies. The dialog is from hunger, as is the acting. Other than tuning in to get a look at the beautiful Meyer, this one is best skipped.

An Egypt-themed B-movie from the Sci Fi Channel. I'm not sure that many people will be wowed by this set-up or idea and indeed the execution turns out to be just a poor as in many a film made by the channel. The storyline sees a couple of heroic characters teaming up to battle an ancient curse whereby a Sphinx is wreaking havoc in the modern world and killing all who stand before it.

Despite the Egypt theme and setting, this cheapo movie was made in Canada and boy does it show. None of the sets are remotely convincing, the CGI effects are awful, and nowhere is there an air of authenticity. Instead, the film happily copies and combines the characters from the INDIANA JONES and TOMB RAIDER franchises, to ill effect. Dina Meyer (STARSHIP TROOPERS) is the ageing female lead, saddled with an awful hairstyle and trying desperately to be Angelina Jolie (hint: she isn't). Lochlyn Munro is the chubby, goofy Indiana Jones wannabe (he even dresses the same) and frankly he's an embarrassment. RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX is thus barely watchable.