ORBzine - April 2006 Movie Reviews
Dead By Midnight
Timothy Hutton (
Iceman, The Dark Half, 5 Days to Midnight
) wakes up with amnesia.
Suzy Amis
is his wife - or is she?
Eevil scientist John Glover ( Brimstone, Smallville ) is after them.
This is a mediocre made-for-TV pseudo-thriller.
Lion of Oz
This is a cartoon musical,
written by a descendant of the author of the original Oz novels.
A sentient lion and his circus buddy [Dom Deluise - Stargate SG-1 ] take balloon ride, and end up in the land of oz. The wicked witch kidnaps the fat human, and forces the lion to go on a quest. On his way he meets assorted buddies, sings songs and so on.
Derivative crap, but child-friendly.
Curse of King Tut's Tomb (2005)
The film starts with a badly-phrased piece of exposition,
badly read out by Casper van Dien (
Beastmaster III, Starship Troopers
). Apparently the boy pharoh, Tut-Ankh-Amun, had magic powers and fought demons. Like
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
. Now, in the period just after the First World War,
Casper must retrieve bits of a stone tablet that re-open the portal to Hell.
Casper's enemies are the Hellfire Council, led by Malcolm McDowell ( Clockwork Orange, Star Trek: Generations, Tank Girl ). They are the richest and most powerful men in the world, who want to rule by Black Magic instead of economic power. Fools!
Casper prances around dressed as Indiana Jones . Luckily, the French Foreign Legion have a unit in British territory, about a thousand miles from where they should be. They play an important part in his plans.
Casper teams up with a beautiful Egyptologist, just like in The Mummy . She opposes the shipment of artefacts to the British Museum. Of course, Casper would rather claim them for the American Empire's Smithsonian. Or perhaps he would give priceless pre-Islamic relics to anti-American locals?
It turns out that the discovery of Tutenkamun's tomb, in reality performed by Howard Carter and Lord Caernarvon, was somehow achieved by a Yank and a gaggle of mercenaries in the pay of France.
This sad piece of crap was directed by Russell Mulcahy . My, how the mighty have fallen - he started with Highlander , then fell to Blue Ice, but he must be desperate to pay the bills now!
Strangely, the writer was also responsible for the similar, yet far superior Librarian: Quest for the Spear . Seems he was a one-hit-wonder too. Poor bastard. It's downhill from here for him.
The second half is full of crap as well. According to this, Egypt was now somehow a Republic in the 1920s!