Prisoners of the Sun

Oh dear. A made for TV movie starring David Charvet. They tried to apparently do some kind of cool archeology movie and failed horribly. John Rhys Davies should have asked for his name to be stricken from the record of this one. It is just completely horrible.

And IMDB has now made it so a review has to have 600 characters before it can be entered. I really don't expect that to last very long because people are sure to complain about it. But until that happens I guess we have to expect reviews to be long winded and sometimes about absolutely nothing to do with the show in question.

This one gets a 3/10.

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.

I remember a time, when I used to love movies like this. Low budget, weird characters, easy to follow, clear cut characters, who'd be either good or bad. It does feel like a throwback, but not in a good sense. Of course there have been worse movies and considering the budget this movie (probably) used, this is pretty decent.

Still it would be too much to say, you have to watch this. Even as a party movie it doesn't really work. You have Mr. Davies in it though, who while still acts as if this is something important. Producers got their money worth there. Judging the other actors on this movie alone would be a bit unfair though. Sometimes you have to start small ...

I'm potty about Egypt movies so I couldn't resist this one especially if they have a little bit of monsters and a little bit of SF, which this seems to have both and how can you resist a movie with both Joss Ackland and John Rhys-Davies? But it's a free movie on Prime and as expected the plot is a bit weak, and aside from the two big name actors, well, while the others do a competent job certainly the writing for the dialogue is very weak; but hey it's free and you got a fast forward button so skip some of the corny dialogue and pseudo intrigue and it's not a bad free movie to watch. I suppose one more area to consider is real archaeology; here also the movie is a joke because among other things, a how many thousands of year old stone slab with cartouches blocks their entrance, and they're smashing it with a hammer? Obviously they have the Heinrich Schliemann Playbook, smash first ask questions later. Hey buddy maybe I could take a photo of that first you know and like publish it or something? Nah just smash it! Who cares what it says! Don't show it to your archaeology students but it's a lot of fun. Hey don't miss the hornets who happen to live in a dark totally sealed tomb and they've been there for how long? What's their food source? Wait while I whip out my handy-dandy flamethrower! It might work better with a mystery 3000 overlay audio.

I'm a fan of this genre; it's one of those "guilty pleasures" we all have. This one, however, was one I definitely should have skipped.

The movie drags up every possible trope and cliche of other similar films: sneaky bad guy, learned professor with his almost-as-learned assistant (sidekick), and a couple of others who were eminently forgettable. Then there are the ancient curses, resurrected mummies (or are they???), and a sandstorm. John Rhys-Davies is the only actor of note in it, as well as the only one who can act. I have no idea why an actor of his repute would do this film. Was he bored and had nothing else to do? Did he just want an easy paycheck? Even he had to resort to over-acting in some scenes just to give it some energy.

Short version? Don't bother. M.